2012-2013 Europa League Match thread [R]

i'm always nervous the day of a big match and especially in the hour or two leading up to this one because i wasn't sure i'd make kickoff... as it is i only missed the first 48 seconds!

a great performance i felt. just continuing on what's been the best season to be an OL fan in a long time!

when i saw the turnover in the starting lineup i kind of understood that garde wasn't considering this the biggest game on the agenda with trips to marseille and nice next week. and the 4-5-1 formation was in line with that : after all, a draw assured us of first place in the group and kept bilbao (still the most dangerous competition until this morning) at arm's length.

but the quality of play by the "replacements" umtiti, monzon and fofana made me guess he was also giving them pitch time because of good practices. the last two especially pleased me since they haven't looked good lately.

great match management by RG too, bringing off licha and steed for lacazette and gomis keeps the first two (and steed has lots of minutes) fresher, the presence of gomis was useful for holding a score, and in case that didn't happen (as we saw) still good for catching one back... as we also saw!

a last note : the people in front of me were germans visiting lyon and they were great fun, singing and cheering right along with us. for most of the chants ("allez, allez allez, allez... l'OL, l'OL" is fairly to pick up) they didn't know the words and just sang their own (after all, the number of basic chants isn't enormous, and lots of them are used by almost everybody). for some things like one trick where everyone gets down, starts shaking their arms, gradually raise volume and then all jump up at once*, or the ones aimed at other tribunes (jean bouin! entends-tu? jean bouin! avec nous!) they caught on immediately so i assume they do the same thing at home!

*horto magico

 

except for the penalty, which was horrible, a great match from gonalons. and from vercoutre. and gourcuff. and good performances from everyone else. went a bit to sleep at 0-2 but woke right up again, went ahead, and fought like junkyard dogs to hold that score. no pasaran!

 

lots of youngsters in the group for matchday 5 in prague :



Vercoutre, Lopes, Frick - Réveillère, Zeffane, M.Dabo, B.Koné, Umtiti, Monzon - Ferri, G.Fofana, Gonalons, Grenier, Gourcuff, Ghezzal, Pléa - Benzia, Lisandro, C.N'Jie, Novillo

it reminds me of the return match in the CL against sparta prague in 2004, when we also had the group sewn up. lineup was :

Puydebois, Essien, Diarra (Gomez 56e), Malouda (Idangar 67e), Nilmar, Réveillère, Frau, Diatta, Bergougnoux, Berthod (Truchet 81e), Clément.

5-0 to OL : Essien (7'), Nilmar (19', 51'), Idangar (83') Bergougnoux (90+1')

 

in 2004/5 (only season at OL) he scored 2 goals in 32 league games and 4 in 9 CL appearances. of course the one we all remember is the one he didn't score...​

​

​

​

sigh...​

​

 

i am certain that to this very day, this man:



would not dare come to the city of lyon. he probably doesn't even dare drive through the tunnel of fourviere when, like half of denmark, he drives down to the mediterranean on holiday.

 

1st half : a nice FK from gourcuff that only needed to hit the bar a couple of inches lower to go in, a nice trap and volley from ghezzal. 2nd half : benzia just squeezed in a nice pass from yoyo, and grenier lit up a good outside shot that forced the the czech goalie into his one big save.

the sparta goal was a letdown, umtiti and koné got outnumbered down the left side, i think monzon let them down a bit. but like you say, a draw suits both and now we can play the same group of youngsters against kiryat shmona.

 

starting lineup last night :

Lopes​

Zeffane - Koné - Sarr - Monzon​

Ferri - Fofana​

Pléa - Gourcuff - Bastos​

Benzia​

of course players like gonalons, grenier and lacazette are no longer considered "youth" but even umtiti and ghezzal were left off; it was a real kid's night. i was sorry not to see William Le Pogam at LB, especially since monzon didn't do anything at all with chance to show he really belongs : he's been aa big disappointment. kone was rugged on defense but his passing as catastrophic as ever. gourcuff and fofana both decent, bastos should have been more daring, but the effort was there, he put in a nice cross for sarr on the first goal and nearly gave martial (only 16, quelle belle plante!) another assist near the end. benzia who was very active at the front all night got a strange but deserved goal for the 2-0 and ferri had two chances to make it 3-0 in the last 20 minutes.

POTM though was lopes. awesome, and without him we would have probably lost. the defense was not so much bad as just disorganized, a bit to be expected under the circumstances.

official attendance was almost 30,000 but thatmust be tickets sold, i don't think there were more than 20.000 actually in the stadium, what with the fete des lumieres starting the same night (more people in the metro for the illuminations than for the match!) and the below-zero temperatures. even the BG had some difficulty getting much atmosphere going, and what there was had mostly to do with this weekend's derby*. the visitors' section was full, but as is often the case for this kind of opponent i don't think they came all the way from israel, they were locals.

* the ironi GK had the bad taste or the bad sense to wear a green uniform. he got a lot of jeers for that!

 

true, but his physique was what made me boggle when i heard he was so young.

 

i watched the first half of the U-19 this afternoon, martial scored on a great header in the opening minutes and gave the ajaccio defense fits all half. injouable at a level for which he is almost surclassé. he turned 17 on dec. 5, four weeks younger and he could play U-17... scored a second near the end apparently for 3-0.

 

heartbreaking to lose that way with the closing kick of the game, but both FK's were legit and i think the ref did fine. especially hard to take when you think that no two results in the away leg are closer, buth more different in their significance, that 1-1 and 2-1.

i think the penalty on gomis was the clearest, and it would have changed the complexion of the game radically. OL played well, and played smart. umtiti's goal will be watched 'round the world.

spurs? not great. in the last 30 minutes they were in fact very poor. and aside from the two juninhesque FK's bale wasn't anything to get excited about either.