Ol-tfc 12/01/08 [r]

this time's for sure, we'll be in the VN for this match! TFC is probably the team we've seen the most at gerland and it's not always been fun:

last year was infuriating, with elmander serving up fabinho in stoppages time, a poussin kind of goal ...

the year before that was kind of maddening too even though OL won 4-0; they changed start time after we had the tix (in that empty metro i knew something was fishy ) and we missed juni's first FK... happily he put in a second in the second half, in fact he almost had a FK hat-trick! the second one literally knocked revault out, he clanged his noggin on the upright, giving coupet an opportunity to show great sportsmanship by running all the way over to see if his fat-gloved colleague was OK... he got some kind of fair-play award for that.

the year before that was the match that really stuck in my craw, a 0-0 that was the worst display of anti-football i've ever seen in my life. TFC fouling every player who touched the ball and never left their half.

the first big moment of the match will be when emander is introduced; there was nothing dirty about his play that ruptured cris' ACL, but apparently the guy never even took the trouble to guve cris a call. nice guy.

the next will be coupet's introduction, it's his first match back in gerland.
i suppose none of the new arrivals (including fred) will be on the feuille de match, so i guess we'll se the 3 B's up front and the rest of the usual suspects.

Here is the lineup:

Coupet
Reveillere - Squillaci - Anderson - Grosso
Juninho - Toulalan - Kallstrom
Baros - Benzema - Ben Arfa

Surprisingly, Fred has been included on the bench.

I fixed it for you.

3 beautiful goals last night, and each one was needed to avoid the same catastrophe as last year's OL-TFC. the match had gone completely flat in the last 20 minutes; with toulouse seemingly resigned to their fate OL had nearly complete control of the ball and besides squillaci's header off the post, toulalan, mounier and rémy all found space to perhaps put in a 4th until elmander uncorked two nice shots to finally put coupet to serious work, and fabinho scored in extra time when the lyon defense was listening for the final whistle. hopefully if the score had been 2-1 they would have stayed more attentive to the end.

OL had every intention and expectation to take the game in hand from the start, but surprisingly the violets came out shooting, and lyon buckled down waiting for the storm to pass. perhaps the fluky goal off RVR's head changed nothing except toulouse allowing a change of rhythm de gré instead of de force, because when lyon got the wheels turning the could only hang on...

and by hanging on i mean the anti-jeu which seems to be elie baup's trademark. piccirillo could have started handing out the biscottes much earlier, but this kind of badgerball seems to suit him fine, after all, he reffed the league cup final and look at that match! almost every breakthrough by our gones was answered by an intentional foul or attempt at same. take a look at sirieix's "defending" on HBA's goal for an idea.

coupet was imperial when he had to be, two magnificent saves at the end. squillaci was very good, galavanting forward a couple of times in open play and nearly putting in a header resulting froma setpiece; he and anderson were reassuring and had to be, since both réveillère and grosso were often in trouble; anto was very shaky on the right although he was just unlucky on his OG, there was no seeming danger, the defense was well in place... with the possible exception of grosso, who had a nightmare match. not only did ilunga and sissoko take turns spinning him like a top on the flank, he was 99.4% responsible for fabinho's goal, and on attack he was next to useless. two horrible crosses, and above all, he seemed lethargic. whenever kim or juni would have liked to have someone on the left sideline to play to he was nowhere to be found, and on the few occassions where he overlapped HBA it was too slow and too late to be of any use.

toulalan didn't seem to weigh much on the game, very little of it took place in his sector and he limited his action to sealing transmission to elmander until the last half hour when there was so much space he could bring the ball all the way up to bodmer or baros unchallenged. källström played a great match and got the armband from juni when he subbed out. it's not the first time, but the other times neither govou nor toulalan were on the pitch. he could have been MOTM another night, but only fourth best saturday. since i want to keep things in order, i'll start where i would otherwise have ended, with juninho who proved once again he is a cut above everyone else in L1 and one of the best at his job in the world. Maybe TFC (and piccirillo) shouldn't have got his wind up before that free kick but he did a lot more than that, including a tackle and a lot of other work that made me wonder at times if toulalan hadn't started playing in long sleeves and black gloves!
i think enough has been said elsewhere aboutthe brilliant work by benzema and ben arfa, but what adds to my amazement is that they did it all without govou, who was very much missed. baros isn't a bad player around the box, but when he goes to his bag of tricks for the tools to play on the right wing he finds not much; none of the tracking back, and neither the speed or the physique to hold down any sizeable piece of ground. hopefully delgado is all he's cracked up to be, we'll need him this month!

on the mark except for källström who deserved the same 6 as the others, and juni who should have had the same mark as the bens. maybe HBA deserved the extra half point even if 8's are rare as hen's teeth... in the same vein, a 3.5 is a real slap in the face but grosso's match really deserved one.

maybe, maybe not. certainly if flo came back to lyon he'd struggle for starts, but in NT it's different, and i'd say he still has the edge. for now.