Olympique Lyonnais Cafe II [R]

[guignol]

So here's what happened on the sweetest pitch in lyon, good old field #10:

cacapa 60 minutes, RVR 90 minutes.

anto worked well with govou on the right side and served him up a sweet cross in the first half that sid put on the crossbar.

cacapa didn't take any risks for his leg, but controlled his zone in back royally.

in the second half, RVR jinked by his man and just missed opening up the scoring from 30 metres, but finally it was the pedretti who scored first. govou headed on a benzema cross and big ben knocked some cobwebs out with it. wiltord and diarra almost came onto the field to congratulate him, they were as happy as he was!

monaco equalized in injury time when vercoutre handled a ball that bounced off pedretti but, to the amazement of all, the referee called a backpass. Gigliotti scored on monaco's only real chance of the game.

Pedretti came close to a double in the dying seconds, forcing robinet to tip his shot from the edge of the box over the bar.

among the 1200 spectateurs were Houllier, Lacombe, Coupet, Wiltord, Diarra, Hartock, Clerc, and Berthod.

[Breakwood]

Sylvain Wiltord has opened up the scoring in Sochaux today in the 27th minute

Sochaux 0-1 Lyon so far in the 1st half

[Breakwood]

It's halftime and Lyon has added another one. Benoit Pedretti scored in injury time to make it 2-0

Sochaux 0-2 Lyon at Halftime.

[karny9]

could you guys tell me who your regular 4 starting defenceman are, and how you would rank them based on performance this year and current form?

[guignol]

could you guys tell me who your regular 4 starting defenceman are, and how you would rank them based on performance this year and current form?that's a tough one, the defense has changed several times due to injuries. the most pertinent way to answer is to start with what we've seen over the past month or so. from left to right:

abidal - since coming back from breaking his foot (france - costa rica) he has given steady good performances. he has great technique, is not afraid of contact, but his trump card is his speed, he's probably our n°1 TGV, and if you haven't noticed OL is a fast team.

müller - although iffy when he arrived from basel, and horrible in the rennes disaster (to the point abidal played the next match in central defense and malouda was moved back to cover the left) he has been very good since, arguably the best of the 4. cris says it's a delight playing next to him, his positional sense is incredible (with his "speed" it better be!)

cris - the best defender in france by far, and one of the best in europe. even with the horrendous match against rennes i think he's averaging 7.0 in l'équipe ratings.

clerc - 100% good matches since he replaced the injured réveillère (diatta played the spot against rennes), and it will be interesting to see how houllier handles the situation now that RVR is healthy.

now the others:

caçapa - just now getting match fit after missing the last 2 months with a thigh injury; he played 60 minutes with the reserves last week. his probabilities of replacing müller in the starting 4? 50% for bastia, 100% for milan(sorry pat! ;) )

réveillère - played 90 minutes with the reserves. will certainly play either against bastia or toulouse or both. chances of getting his spot back from clerc for milan? 50-50 :confused:

berthod - still not practicing full-speed, his 2-3 week thigh injury is taking its sweet time. but he's not the regular left back, his chances of replacing abidal depend upon whether eric breaks his foot a third time this season. :rolleyes:

monsoreau - still injured; nominally the third center back. the idea is he'll one day take claudio's spot but müller's peformances makes it look like he'll be a backup at least two more years. the fact that he can also play on the left might make berthod the odd man out this summer.

diatta - it's now clear he's the third string right back, and just how many defenders will we have on the squad next year? but his market value is next to nothing (he's 31) and you never know, injuries do happen!

[lefutur]

isnt it weird how i cant remember the last time OL didnt score 4 goals against its opponent in recent memory?

[Allez]

the last time we did not score 4 goals is when we were scored 4 goals against.

[guignol]

the last time we did not score 4 goals is when we were scored 4 goals against.not quite... we beat ajaccio 3-1.

mind you, when you add the first two matches of 2006, 4-0 seems to be our Lieblingspunktstand. :)

[guignol]

hey, i just got a glimpse of the new USMNT jersey...http://store1.yimg.com/I/yhst-78507158105148_1890_23283162 http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3457/mariot9kp.jpg

total class!

and for more info...

http://www.ol-crewz.com/?page=maillots_historique

[lefutur]

is that the 1971 jersey?

[guignol]

yes. i don't know who that is though; i wanted to post the picture of di nallo kneeling in the same jersey with mister west on it, but couldn't locate it.

[Lyonnais]

OL-TFC has just finished, 1-1. Toulouse scored (first) on its first and only real attack, which was a counter-attack on a Juni's free-kick pushed back by the "wall", and their goal-keeper did a great game. It happens. Maybe some players played only at 95%, because of the LDC game to come this week, but we did a good game.

[guignol]

i'm glad to hear they played well, because i didn't even listen to the game on the radio, i was busy at my son's basketball game, (which we won 63-10 :cool: )

i can say "we" because i'm the coach now... the other coach gave up in desperation with a 1-9 record, and i was asked to take over... since then we're 4-0 against the same teams. in fact the team we crushed had beaten us by 18 points just before xmas... jeez, were they surprised! :D

[Lyonnais]

Troyes 0-1 OL. Not a very good game, but we got 3 points, that's the point. GH did a lot of substitutions - even Cris didn't play. Some rest before Milan.
Goal : Tiago, 77e minute.

[Breakwood]

i'm glad to hear they played well, because i didn't even listen to the game on the radio, i was busy at my son's basketball game, (which we won 63-10 :cool: )

i can say "we" because i'm the coach now... the other coach gave up in desperation with a 1-9 record, and i was asked to take over... since then we're 4-0 against the same teams. in fact the team we crushed had beaten us by 18 points just before xmas... jeez, were they surprised! :D

So would you like to move over to Toronto and take over the Raptors? :rolleyes:

[Allez Lyonnais]

FT Lyon 2 - 1 OGCN (Fred, Malouda - Ederson)

Now that the gap is stretched to 14 pts with only 5 games to go, Championnat title is effectively won..:cool:

Let's finish strong. Of course, don't forget the Coupe!

[guignol]

i would have loved to go to gerland this weekend since there aren't many matches left... unfortunately i thought it was nice-lyon and when i realized otherwise it was too late.

but i made a discovery... a local channel rebroadcasts every match the next day! and the color commentator is none other than bernard lacombe! worth watching even if you know the result. he doesn't keep his tongue in his pocket as the saying goes!

anyway, that match was clearly the worst i've seen OL play in a long, long time, but they say the sign of a great club is to be able to win even when they play badly so...

coupet saved our bacon more than once, but hey, that's his job! ;)

cris was so-so, but abidal and RVR played poorly, and caçapa was awful.

pedretti put a few nice long balls forward, clement was fair to middling, but tiago was just absent in a lineup where he was supposed to be the motor. in his defense i think he had the flu, and he was replaced just after halftime by juninho, who was good without being great (true that OL had gone ahead just before he entered, so no need to blow a gasket).

fred was good up front, govou wasn't. luckily malouda was there, he was good enough to make up for all the others and get OL the 3 points.

the nice goal came on a counterattack that hardly looked like one at first, but OL was napping.

but the essential is the win which assures us the title, gets last tuesday's unpleasantness out of heads and legs and paves the way for a huge victory tomorrow!

[Nanbawan]

Félicitations !

http://imageswinnieptitours.site.voila.fr/gifs/messages/felicitations/felicitations004.gif



You made it ! Now, like in F1, there are some records I don't wanna see broken too soon ! :p

[Breakwood]

Qui ne saute pas n'est pas Lyonnais, hey!

5 in a row sure does taste sweet!

[Allez]

we are the Champions!

i don't see any team can prevent Lyon winning the 6th Champion in a row