first round for OL this sunday in the french cup, a mini-derby against grenoble. what kind of lineup do you think houllier should play? the big boys, the youngsters? we went out of the league cup with a back line of abidal, clerc, monsoreau, diatta, and frau, pedretti, clément and a just arrived fred in the lineup. vercoutre in goal, that's a promise. but the rest? we want this cup!
guignol, why do Lyon constantly stink at Cup competitions and lose to crappy opposition? I just don't get it, they should be winning this thing.
who are you calling crappy opposition? like pont-saint esprit? libourne-saint-saturnin? clemont ferrand? at least this year it took nantes to get us out, and in a PK shootout at that.
I guess its an improvement, but I remember watching the Clermont game last season and thinking this team just doesn't look confident during extra-time, nor during the 90 mins when the home team started to get physical with them. A few months later they did the same thing against PSV... Its part of the game, that Lyon have to deal with imo.
you can add the league cup match against nantes to that. that 11 hadn't played much together, and looked it. but certain players, like pedretti, looked spooked to be out there. against grenoble yesterday it was different. there was a similar mix of old and new, but among the "old", they played a boss on each line: cris-juni-nino. and coupet instead of vercoutre. this obviously helped the others a lot. the three bens looked good.pedretti confident and reliable, ben arfa scored the last goal, and what can you say about the festival benzema put on? there are going to be rumors about him in the english press before the year's out i predict! maybe at 2M£, maybe at 20M£... what does it matter since they just make it all up?
something i read in the paper last night: on the lyon-duchère squad that knocked toulouse out this weekend, 14 players came out of the OL youth system!
and lyon-duchère keeps on rolling! http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=359240&CPID=24&clid=&lid=11&title=Racing+crash+out+of+cup
close call for OL in corsica! 1-2 in extra time. once again they did the seeming impossible in the last 15 minutes. houllier's replacements cris, govou and wiltord got the job done; it's not easy for a club like ajaccio to go 120 minutes against that kind of depth. the sour note is that both carew and réveillère left the pitch due to injuries. carew is good to go against bordeaux, but RVR is out, and it's not yet clear for how long.
It was pretty interesting to see Carew & Fred being put together on the starting XI. What kind of formation did GH put out there? Did they get along well?
It's time to bring this one back. We are matched up again to another Corsican side, this time Ligue 2 side Bastia at the Gerland. Here is the 16 eligible players for tomorrow's match. Ben Arfa, Benzema, Cacapa, Clément, Coupet, Cris, Diatta, Fred, Govou, Juninho, Malouda, Müller, Pedretti, Réveillère, Tiago, Vercoutre. I'd like to see Coupet Rev-Cacapa-Cris-Malouda (We have no other leftback, unless muller can play there?) Pedretti Govou-Ben Arfa Fred-Benzema
Mr. Houllier, we demand three trophies this time. Remember how JMA got so pissed off at you when OL got knocked out of CdlL..?
i think you're on the right track, but... 1) that's only 10! 2) i think clement will start too; if diarra was in the group i would have expected playing diarra-pedretti-tiago as a trial run for AC Milan. 3) imo malouda will rest. i didn't know either müller or diatta could play on the left, but we'll see! i don't think they'll go 4-4-2, they'll line up more like: coupet RVR-Cris-Cacapa-mystery left back pedretti-tiago-ben arfa govou-fred-benzema weather is mild but it's starting to rain...
it would be great if someone could do some type of PbP for this game... or at least point me a to a site that will cover it
Mind you that Anthony used to play at the left back station during his spell at Valencia... And one another thing to mention, Pat can play on the right side. I think it'll be more like this: Diatta or Muller-Cris-Cacapa-Reveillere
Hahaha I didnt even notice I only put 10 men in my side. Not that it's that big of a deal. Did anyone see the game or highlights, if so how'd the team look and how was the goal scored?
well, that was harder than expected. bastia is leading L2 and was better than a lot of L1 clubs. gerland was fuller than expected, they even opened up the virages supérieurs which were not on sale when i got my tickets. one of the big moments was the introduction of florent laville for his return to gerland; there wasn't a dry eye in the house! weather mild and dry, but rain in the afternoon made the field slippery and a bit slow. the first 15 minutes were very rocky, with a novel lineup searching for themselves, but once they got (more or less) organized, things were less hectic. diatta at left back was only a semisurprise to me; juninho starting was more unexpected, but it shows how much respect houllier had for bastia and the importance he puts on winning this cup! OL showed a certain dominance and bastia had no true shots on goal in the match but there was always a danger and we never really knocked them out. the match was open, the rhythm was sustained until the last 10 minutes when the corsicans had no juice left at all. only one goal, a magnificent shot from juni; part of the reason was penneteau, who was excellent in goal for bastia, and part was the inefficiency of the lyon attack; there was lots of nice work but always a little something missing in the end. coupet - not a single real stop to make, but a lot of work in the air and he did it all perfectly. diatta – looked like bambi on ice for the first 15 minutes but finally settled down and did a reasonable job for his first time (i think) on the left. two nice headers, one stopped by penneteau, the other on the crossbar. cacapa - he's back. and solid. always in position, plenty of clean tackles, and some work up front. a very nice match. cris - a solid match like we're used to, and he almost scored on a nice pass from benzema. réveillère - on his own he was his sly old self. the coordination with govou and the others was not up to snuff but that instinctive teamwork takes a while to get back. good enough to keep the debate open on the right, not good enough to close it. pedretti - on a string of 3 matches where he's better each time, would have been MOTM if not for juni's goal. very nice teamwork with juni and tiago, and solid tackles and ballwinning. tiago - once again he probably had more balls than anyone; i don't remember him losing any, and quite a few nice ones into benzema and fred. juninho - the metronome; when he steps it up the whole team does. when he puts his foot on the ball everyone calms down. plus a wicked shot from outside the box that won the game. it's a little unsettling to see the team depend on him so much when you know he'll be missing against milan! benzema - showed a lot of talent; forced penneteau to make a couple of great saves, and did some nice crossing too, but was always just a penny short or a second late. fred - laville had him screwed down pretty tight (excellent match from flo btw) but like karim he never made the most of his chances and he had a few. to his credit there's a bright spot though; they were best when they played closest together, and somewhere down the road we may see them in a 4-4-2 from parallel hell! govou - he also had a couple of shots blocked by penneteau, but is often the case, it looked like he was spinning his wheels a good part of the time.
Its comforting to know that Pedretti is getting better since he may have to replace Juni against Milan. I'm still expecting great things from Benzema.
i'd sure like to go, and there are still seats available, but since we already have tickets for ASVEL (basketball) the next day i'm not sure mrs. guignol will let us... they're both schoolnights. and it might be on TF1... if it's not i just might go alone. GH will probably play a second string lineup tomorrow against Nice and put the big dogs up against OM; the championship is just about cooked, and we'll need the double to get the bad taste out of our mouth. paradoxically, the CdF is the priority now, both for fans and players. it's going to go fast, too. WC oblige, the semis and final have been moved up to 20/04 and 29/04 respectively. this is a big help since it allows us to keep focused on this competition, ans there are some tough customers left: cup specialist OM, a PSG back on form, and our bête noire, lille.
yesterday i saw an offer on olweb: all seats at 8€, 6€ for under 16. quite an offer, and above all assurance that there were plenty of seats available. so i asked mrs. guignol to go pick up 2 "full-price" seats, that way if guignol jr. was still poorly (a bit under the weather he is) or had too much homework, i could take a neighbor... sold out! sure, OL sells out all the time, but not for televised CdF matches on tuesdays! sure it's OM, but my guess is that the semi will be the same if we draw a home match even if we draw away there'll be 10000 gones making the trip. that only means one thing: we're all hungry like wolves for this cup! gerland will be hot like for the CL! after all, winning the league isn't such a big deal anymore, (been there, done that...) we NEED this double to save our season! and in an interview in this month's allez lyon, pedretti says even after bonal and the vèlo, he's amazed by the fans here, the way they stick with the team even when they're down, "if we've come from behind to win in gerland so many times this season, it's no coincidence". i just hope we draw the winner of PSG/lille at gerland, because i'm just that ticked off at not going tonight. and for what? for basketball! otherwise i'd have had the seats a week ago (for 20€ but hey you live how many times*?) arrrrgghhhh *once? that's what i thought
well, a horrible match. OM won 2-1 with their first goal coming with a player 2 metres offside on an almost accidental "pass", and the second on a very fast 2-on-2 counterattack; müller had ribery smothered and RVR was inside niang's shirt but they pulled it off anyway. but that was all OM had. it's criminal to lose a match like that! coupet had two chances and lost both; they both would have been super saves, but at least the second was in his register; he's made tougher. RVR was OTL. cris was only fair, müller was no better. abidal ran and ran up front but helped very little behind. juninho was inventive but against a huge mass of OM players he never broke through. tiago neither, though he had a couple of big shots from outside the box. diarra was big in the air in our half but useless otherwise. malouda was good once again, but got no real help. fred scored on a corner but never got turned around in dangerous position, in fact he spent more time near the half line than in the box. wiltord was somewhat more assertive, but for the first time ever, he looked tired to me. he pulled off a great combination with malouda near the end but put his shot over the bar. govou came in for diarra and brought some life to the attack but also put a great chance over the bar. carew came in for abidal and accomplished nothing. What a waste. after milan i was sad, but this morning i'm angry. OL was poor, but OM was frankly puny last night. no excuse for not giving them a good thrashing!
Saw the second half in the pub after waltzing back from the Parc. Why do Lyon constantly choke in cups? I actually wanted Marseille to win and so did everybody else, because it probably gives us a better chance to win the cup. But on the flip side, we want them to win because they won't be like a wounded animal for the trip to Paris at the weekend. I thought it was a rubbish game to be honest, the curse of TF1 lives on! Anyhow, see you in the supercup final next season.