Olympique Lyonnais Cafe II [R]

[Allez Lyonnais]

Another silverware, yeay!

Vercoutre is ma hero. :)

[ilv2]

Another silverware, yeay!

Vercoutre is ma hero. :)

mon héros

congratulations on another tdc, no rancour from my end, from what i've seen i can't wait for the season to start again and best of luck for the opening day (well ok, that peno was bull) :)

[guignol]

the penalty was called at the other end, so i have no idea if it was valid or not, but there were two pretty clear possibilities for one in the first half, a hand ball on benzema's second shot after his FK, and someone pulling someone down by the shirtfront on his way to landreau... i think it was mendy pulling down carew but it could have been traoré pulling down benzema... there was so much of that it's kind of hard to remember who did it that time.

the match was pretty flat all in all, PSG's goal came just when everybody was having a nice glass of warm milk. some notes anyway...

vercoutre was the hero in the PK shootout, and he made the stops he had to for organizing the defense and in his kicking game, coupet was missed. berthod did fine on the left cutting off long balls but provided zero help on attack, clerc was transparent on the right and we'll see RVR against nantes i'm sure. he and müller both subbed and looked good. squillaci had a couple of excellent tackles, but is no threat to start, or even beat patrick out for third center back based on yesterday. caçapa did his job, the best lyonnais with one exception. diarra phoned in his match, toulalan is great at recuperating balls but didn't do great things with most of them, except for one sizzler at the beginning that nearly crucified his old teammate. källström disappointing overall (but he's BIG! i didn't realize how big!), he looked like he was going to get off a cannonshot at the end but was scythed down by i think yepes and not even a foul called the ref was a clown all evening but never worse than just then. carew anchored the team high as always, but was short on technique comapared to last years TdC (hattrick!), if there had been anyone to bring on for him at 60' (frau unfortunately was already busy ;) ) GH would have done so. ben arfa did some interesting stuff, but not as much or as seriously as benzema who was the best for lyon.

as for PSG, one note:

brown kits? :rolleyes:

now st.pauli isn't the only club who looks like they dress in the dark!

[guignol]

as promised for a long time now...

:) SONNY'S BACK!:)

he'll be the new striker coach and everyone should be thrilled. of course you'll never see him on a list of the ten greatest players of the century, but sonny was... magic. voted recently as the greatest player in the history of OL, and for good reason... lots of them.

we have a dvd at home, OL's 100 greatest goals; about 15 of them are by sonny, and what a delight! right foot, left foot, header, volley, control and shoot, dribble the defense, back to the goal, heel kicks, cannonades from outside the box, free kicks, hard, soft, short, long, ball in his feet or to the space, he could DO...IT...ALL! and always the goals that counted the most, and captained the team like a wizard to boot.

three men have made OL what it is today: aulas. lacombe. anderson. and maybe sonny more than anyone.

Cette fois-ci c’est officiel : le meilleur buteur de L1 en 1996 avec Monaco, puis en 2000 et 2001 avec l’OL, est de retour dans le club de son coeur l’ Olympique Lyonnais. En effet, tous les attaquants du club doivent se réjouir de la nouvelle, Sonny Anderson devient leur entraineur. Le président Aulas l’a annoncé lui-même "Sonny revient à partir du 1er septembre à l’OL. Nous créons un poste au niveau des jeunes et de l’équipe professionnelle dont il entraînera les attaquants." Par ailleurs, Anderson prendra la présidence de la Fondation OL, une structure qui vient d’être créée et qui a pour but de fédérer les actions à caractère caritatif et social menées par l’Olympique lyonnais , il sera amené aussi à collaborer à OLTV.

[DaeHaMinGuk]

as promised for a long time now...

:) SONNY'S BACK!:)

he'll be the new striker coach and everyone should be thrilled. of course you'll never see him on a list of the ten greatest players of the century, but sonny was... magic. voted recently as the greatest player in the history of OL, and for good reason... lots of them.

we have a dvd at home, OL's 100 greatest goals; about 15 of them are by sonny, and what a delight! right foot, left foot, header, volley, control and shoot, dribble the defense, back to the goal, heel kicks, cannonades from outside the box, free kicks, hard, soft, short, long, ball in his feet or to the space, he could DO...IT...ALL! and always the goals that counted the most, and captained the team like a wizard to boot.

three men have made OL what it is today: aulas. lacombe. anderson. and maybe sonny more than anyone.

Cette fois-ci c’est officiel : le meilleur buteur de L1 en 1996 avec Monaco, puis en 2000 et 2001 avec l’OL, est de retour dans le club de son coeur l’ Olympique Lyonnais. En effet, tous les attaquants du club doivent se réjouir de la nouvelle, Sonny Anderson devient leur entraineur. Le président Aulas l’a annoncé lui-même "Sonny revient à partir du 1er septembre à l’OL. Nous créons un poste au niveau des jeunes et de l’équipe professionnelle dont il entraînera les attaquants." Par ailleurs, Anderson prendra la présidence de la Fondation OL, une structure qui vient d’être créée et qui a pour but de fédérer les actions à caractère caritatif et social menées par l’Olympique lyonnais , il sera amené aussi à collaborer à OLTV.

I bought that DVD at FNAC when I was in Lyon but I forgot about the stupid regions. Next time I'm in Europe, I'm bringing that DVD with me to watch somewhere.

[THE SOS]

Count It!

[THE SOS]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jonah_freedman/09/21/rankings/index.html

yes, SI is not exactly the most reputable magazine for things soccer related, but anytime an impartial observer who is paid solely to provide commentary concerning the beautiful game claims that Lyon is the second best club on earth, it makes me proud to be an OL supporter. Also, its nice to see us getting recognition from the other side of the pond, where often lyon is thrown in with the likes of PSV, Olympiakos/Panathanaikos, Galatasaray and other clubs that traditionally dominate a second-tier european league, however in light of lyon's recent performances, its evident that we merit the distinction of a truly elite club.

[lefutur]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jonah_freedman/09/21/rankings/index.html

yes, SI is not exactly the most reputable magazine for things soccer related, but anytime an impartial observer who is paid solely to provide commentary concerning the beautiful game claims that Lyon is the second best club on earth, it makes me proud to be an OL supporter. Also, its nice to see us getting recognition from the other side of the pond, where often lyon is thrown in with the likes of PSV, Olympiakos/Panathanaikos, Galatasaray and other clubs that traditionally dominate a second-tier european league, however in light of lyon's recent performances, its evident that we merit the distinction of a truly elite club.


Its true. For an American to take notice, it really does mean something. Americans tend to pay attention to british football analysts who are biased and tend to overrate all the teams in the Premier League. So for an American to say that a french league team is better than Chelsea and Man U....that surprises me.

[guignol]

last night i went to see the SA Spurs play the local basketball team... it was a lot of fun, and we held on for the first quarter, even if the final score was 115-90...

courtside were juninho, cris, caçapa, vercoutre, a guy hidden under a baseball cap i think was govou, and... sonny anderson.

even next to duncan, TP or juni, there's something about that guy that says to me, "the greatest of them all."

[guignol]

there's now one fewer brazilian on OL... captain claudio is now a french citizen!
http://www.olweb.fr/index.php?lng=fr&a=27578&pid=101002

[THE SOS]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jonah_freedman/10/05/rankings/index.html

No. Big. Deal.

[guignol]

http://www.baltimoregroupblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/cork-pop.jpg

[THE SOS]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=384396&root=europe&cc=4716

It might not be the greatest article of all time, it focuses more on Houllier than Lyon (as british papers have the tendency to do) but hey, its about OL, in a positive light and in English (a rarity, since most pieces concerning OL are en francais) so i figured i'd post it.

[guignol]

I'd been promising to take junior to practice for a long time, and this week was school vacation... i feel really bad about not keeping that promise, especially since yesterday there was a match i would have paid to see!

5 v 5 on a half field; Wiltord, Berthod, Rémy, Müller et Vercoutre, who beat Diarra, Carew, Källström, Réveillère et Hartock. great fun to watch, and the players take it seriously.

it's neat to see the pros play like kids... my son played 3 on 3 basketball once last year with three local pros, and since there were two americans on both side it was great fun.

when he kept goal for the neighborhood club's poussins, he played an exhibition indoor match where the opposing keeper was joël bats! but the boy didn't even realize he was anything more than the OL keeper coach... i had to clue him in! ;)

[guignol]

if this magnificent weather holds i now what i'm doing this sunday: watching OL-PSG! http://www.olweb.fr/index.php?lng=fr&a=28696&pid=101002

i used to go see a lot of the ladies' matches when half the USWNT played here... that was quite a treat. now the americaines are gone, and the brésiliennes too, but the homegrown girls are becoming a force to be reckoned with.

my son's team once played a match against the OL girls... it was benjamines (U-13 girls) against poussins (U-10 boys) and a curious matchup: all the technique and daintiness was with the boys, and all the speed and aggressiveness was with the girls. i remember the opening skirmishes were a real shock, our lads spent the first half eating gravel!

[DaeHaMinGuk]

Is soccer/football the most popular sport for girls in France to play?

[Anti-footix]

not at all. really really not at all. football is a macho thing. women hates football. that is a cliché, but, I do not know a lot of girls that like football, and in my entire life, I only met once a girl that played footbal in a club
football is a men restricted area.

number of people playing football in FFF clubs : 2 143 688, and only 50 232 are chicks, so only a 2.3% of people playing football in France are women.
http://www.fff.fr/presentationfff/chiffres/1027.shtml

[DaeHaMinGuk]

So what sports do girls in France play?

In America, soccer might be the #1 sport for girls.

[Anti-footix]

http://www.cub-brest.fr/enmdad/images/danse%203.jpg

http://www.grs.aslouveciennes.org/photos/3_Bessonova05UKR.jpg

here are the numbers :

http://www.linternaute.com/sport/classement/les-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france.shtml

http://www.jeunesse-sports.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/MascFeminin2004-2.pdf

so as you can see, football is, respectively, the sport that girls play less !! even more girls, respectively, play rugby !
a girl that wants to play a team sport would pick basketball, handball or volleyball, but not football.

[lefutur]

http://www.grs.aslouveciennes.org/photos/3_Bessonova05UKR.jpg


well i would date a girl who could pull that off :D