went to see OL-montpellier this afternoon, the rain was threatening but actually we got very little. field very greasy but even enough and didn't cut up at all, sonia went down quite comically running up to an FK but not a bad pitch all in all. lair started an decidedly offensive 4-3-3 with both schelin and le sommer, rosana on the left and nécib and abily right behind them leaving shirley cruz to take care of the running by herself. amandine henry started at right back. lyon put the pressure on quickly and after some great work by le sommer on the right abily crossed right from the corner to rosana at the second post to take the lead after 3'. MHSC clearly had one thing in mind just stay in place and try to nick one, and marie-laure delie was gifted a chance when sarah bouhaddi came out extremely recklessly against hoda lattaf, but wendie cleared off the line miraculously. that would be montpellier's only chance as even after plaza came in for meilleroux, asseyi was all alone up front; it's called "de la suite dans les idées". a couple of other fairly good chances for OL in the first half, the best one being abily winning a ball and making a nice pass to send schelin in with only philippe to beat and le sommer right along with her... a seeming sure thing that in the end didn't even become the penalty that everyone but the ref saw... sure lotta could have got the ball to eugénie earlier, but there was no hurry until philippe took her down pretty savagely. lair made all the right moves in the second half: first dickenmann for rosana who was absolutely world class for 30' but casper the friendly ghost after that: lara was huge. then corine franco for nécib, who had worked hard, finally thomis for le sommer; neither she nor lotta had been having a great day but lotta, who had lacked combativity in the first half was getting stronger, while eugénie who had got more stuck in in a fairly physical game was fading fast. but montpellier was sticking to their guns... some latecomers thought the match ended 0-0, MHSC seemed so obviously to be digging in for the draw! POTM definitely amandine. she did a lot of running for nothing in the first half and deserved a lot more looks from her teammates, but when cocotte took over at RB she sealed the game at no.6. i mean, shirley is a tough little girl but henry is THE BEST THERE IS. and as i was leaving i saw a guy in jeans, leather jacket and knit cap... not even headed for the clubhouse... not even on the phone... just standing in the rain like any ordinary mug; then it occured to me hell yes, OF COURSE that's bruno bini... where the hell else would he be on a saturday afternoon with 3/4 of his squad on field n°10? so the big question is: when will the man moninated for FIFA coach of the year realize his team cannot do without amandine henry?
I have a question. Can we expect the PSG women's team to be the dominant team now because of whats happening with the mens team ?
a fair question and one that in recent weeks has been much on my mind. it's my considered opinion, though wanting to avoid any rash cultural stereotyping, that the qataris haven't, nor are likely to develop, any great interest in women's football. this is probably THE year where women's football in france goes into a higher gear, but PSG seems to be stuck in neutral: allie long and ella masar were signed for the duration of the WPS off-season, but PSG did the same thing in spades a couple of years ago with abily and bompastor. no other notable arrivals at the beginning of the season, no movement this winter... only 7 girls under pro contracts and looking at their roster that leaves 3 or 4 who will probably be looking to LEAVE in the summer. all that despite needing to really pick up the pace to get into the hunt for a CL spot. they're the only club among the "big four" that has been put in difficulty by someone outside that group. if anything they seem to be fading. you can argue that the new management is too much occupied with the men's side at present to worry about the ladies, but all it would take on their part right now would be to give the people who run the feminine side 100,000€ and directions to use it wisely. but contrary to that, they're the ones who nixed PSG-OL being played in the PdP when everyone else was preparing for it: the city of paris, the league, TV crews... anyway, we'll know this summer. and the task is so easy when you have such means that if 18 months from now the two monster women's teams in the world aren't both french, it's unlikely PSG willl ever even be the biggest women's club in paris.
If Amandine had not gone to the dark side, she would still be in the team... She is my favorite French player, so I am gutted she can't be called back but there is a logic in not selecting her, which cannot be put on a public forum. (This is a privacy problem)
coincidence, i exchanged a few words with didine this morning... and welcomed mlle tonazzi to la capitale de gaules; but above all had a nice talk with lara dickenmann who is really, really nice. a bit of a chatterbox (like me) but the very best kind of chatterboz, interesting and interested. when she heard my accent she started speaking to me in english and we spent about 20 minutes talking about ohio state, california and points in between while she helped me get confirmation of kick-off time for OL-standard liege. just a real great lady.
an excellent draw for the champions' league: finnish champion PK35 vantaa in the round of 32 and either stjarnan (iceland) or krasnogorsk (russia) in the round of 16.
a seemingly prestigious matchup wednesday in annecy (close to where OL is holding camp): Olympique Lyonnais - FC Barcelona! les fenottes in their new 3-D european kits but FCB chicas is not the same thing at all: they had lost their first spanish league match and failed to make any impact at all in this match. OL dominated from the opening whistle but to little avail. wendie renard headed two shots early (2', 7') then amandine henry forced the catalan keeper into two saves (22', 24'). wendie hit the bar with another header on 38' and schelin skied one over an open goal just before halftime. in the 2nd half Lair put in Franco, Thomis, Otaki and Tonazzi (for Abily, Bussaglia, Schelin and Dickenmann) and went to a 4-4-2. four minutes later le sommer headed in a thomis cross for 1-0; at 57' Renard headed in a corner for 2-0. in the last half hour barça barely touched the ball but it wasn't until 79' that Otaki made it 3-0 on a nice pass from Nécib.. 1500 spectators including Aulas, Sidney Govou and Michel Bastos who sent several tweets to Wendie Renard after the match, he was obviously much impressed.
I didnt know FCB had a women's team but its surprising to hear that they arent among the best in Europe. I know this is OL women but I saw some PSG women's news today. http://www.foot01.com/equipe/paris/le-psg-met-ses-millions-au-service-de-sa-section-feminine,93629
barça has had a women's section much longer than OL in fact but though reigning champions they are not habitually the class of the spanish league. it's a question of priorities. PSG clearly will make women's football a priority: 4.5M€ is slightly more than OL's budget and i believe second in europe after frankfurt
I found a better article here about the PSG women. http://www.footdelles.com/article/Actu_Les-feminines-du-PSG-dans-une-nouvelle-dimension_69156.html
team pictures were made yesterday. http://www.olweb.fr/fr/Accueil/100007/Article/60280/La-rentree-des-feminines can you imagine this covered in mud? just makes a man's blood boil.
Its looks like PSG wants be and all around sports club again. Men's football, women's football, and handball are already locked up and people are speculating basketball could be next. I hope they dont go into rugby union. Rubgy league fine ok but yes I do know the PSG rugby league team of the 90's was a flop as well as PSG basketball of that era. They should just stick to soccer and handball and try not to spread themselves too thin.
next up first match of the regular season against Rodez AF. kickoff 14:20 (strange time) at gerland. free admittance. honorable 8th place (out of 12) for RAF last season, but the match is not likely to hold much suspense, and temps will be 29°-30° so probably not a great spectacle either. a chance to see otaki and tonazzi again though, i think the strikers you know better will play one half at most. match is on eurosport france, meaning available to all subscribers of radio clash (pirate satellite).
Olympique Lyonnais 8-0 Rodez Aveyron Football Bouhaddi Franco (Schelin 46') - Viguier (Georges 20') - Renard - Bompastor Henry - Abily - Necib (Otaki 46') Thomis - Tonazzi - Dickenmann. Goals : Tonazzi (18', 34'), Abily (21', 31'), Otaki (47', 70'), Schelin (66', 71') mondays are bad for me so those interested in recaps of OL matches are often going to have to wait until tuesday. or even longer. sometimes even forever. of course they can go to the english version of olweb which is more complete for the ladies than for the men! rodez is far from the worst team i've seen but the level drops off so sharply after the first 4-5 clubs in D1... for early 20 minutes they were well organized; holding a 0-0 scoreline to then was to their credit, and if not for the speed of dickenmann and thomis they could have kept it a lot longer. the first two goals came from lara just being too fast for them; there wasn't that much space behind in the first half but she didn't need much and with the precision of her crossing tonazzi and abily didn't need much more than a deft flick to score (though the angle of camille's required a very deft flick indeed). the third was a carbon copy coming from thomis on the right. the fourth by tonazzi proved just how good this relatively unknown (uncapped sinced 2005 for country, for club buried in the wilds of darkest essonne since 2001) striker is: an amazing trap of bouhaddi's clearance, two perfect touches to get through and a strike of surgical precision. 4-0 at half and RAF, within their means, having really done nothing wrong. the juicy detail pravda won't give you is that viguier didn't come off after 20' for a knock like you may suspect; PL was mad as hell at her and after a particularly timid 10" sequence where she had three chances to get the ball first before then from her opponent he wasn't going to take it anymore. schelin and otaki subbed in at HT (other detail : lotta warmed up without shinguards and with her socks carefully folded down so all the stripes were even... looked horrible but it was pretty hot) and of course i assumed they were coming in for tonazzi and one of the wingers. wrong again, it was for franco and nécib which on the surface translates into a 3-2-5. or a 4-1-5 with henry moving to RB. in any case it's three center forwards and two full-fledged wingers which seems inordinately cruel to a team already down 4-0. in fact otaki slotted in behind the front four and abily moved way back to sweep beside didine. as for the cruelty factor the change was evidently a preordained experiment that lair was going to use no matter what... even if the viguier unpleasantness meant a) burning his last sub at HT* and b) playing laura georges at RB (her throw-ins are worse than mine and two were disallowed: PL was lenient on the first but on the second i thought he was going to pull laura and play with 10 girls just to vent some spleen). the upshot of that formation can be explained in three words: speed, speed and speed. now OL really was getting behind the aveyronaises something wicked and short of backing all the way up to the hoardings there was precious little they could do about it. in any case, down 5-0 after 47" in 30° weather they were probably thinking more about what scent of shower gel they were going to use than who m they were going to mark. WOTM : Dickenmann hands down. Next up (after the international break) : @ Yzeure Allier Auvergne (and their american GK Libby Stout!) on 23/09. pictures here. *it's always wise to save your last sub in case of injury... especially to the keeper! so the question i've asked elsewhere is: who do you think puts on the gloves if sarah goes down? i love that kind of riddle!
Yzeure 0-8 OL OL lineup: Bouhaddi - Agard, Renard, Georges, Bompastor - Henry (65e), Otaki, Abily - Thomis (Necib 50e), Le Sommer (Tonazzi 46e), Majri. Goals: Le Sommer (12e, 14e), Renard (23e), Otaki (33e), Abily (60e, 62e, 90e), Tonazzi (87e). Abily leads the league in scoring after that hat-trick. Excellent match from academy hopeful Amel Majri.
because this doesn't properly go in the division one thread (and also to see if anyone is listening) OL reserves beat pontcharra yesterday 23-0... the interesting part for y'all being that lotta schelin played the first half (as did elise bussaglia, both coming back from injury) and lotta scored 8 goals in that half. (and probably signed autographs for her opponents when coming off).
and the big girls took it to vendenheim 13-0. hard lines for the strasbourgeoises who were much decimated by injuries, they're a club putting in a lot of effort and whose presence in D1 is a good thing. big good : abily got her 100th (and 101st) D1 goals. big bad : wendie renard went out early when her knee went crack, came back to watch the second half with her leg in a big brace and then left for an MRI. and we all know what that means don't we? ladies, you'll never have equality as long as your knees are made out of silly putty. you'll have to do something about that or it's right back to the kitchen. is that clear? OL : Bouhadi - Agard, Renard (Viguier 12e), Georges, Bompastor - Henry (Traore 46e), Necib, Abily - Thomis (Otaki 50e), Tonazzi, Le Sommer. goals : Thomis (4e, 28e, 53e), Le Sommer (16e, 85e), Abily (18e, 36e, 81e), Tonazzi (24e, 68e, 79e), Georges (45e, 49e). more pics : http://www.damienlg.fr/index.php?/category/67
if you look two posts up you'll see she scored 8 goals in 45' with the reserves so if she's injured i want to get exactly what she's got, i've scored less than that in 6 years.
And scored three in a real match this week-end. Quite interesting to how the media's Zlatanmania and increased coverage of Ligue 1 here also seems to have translated to Schelin and Kosovare, already read three different articles about their matches (and hat-tricks) this week-end in the Swedish newspapers. Though I suspect that the home-Euros next year also play a part.
some good pics of juvisy-OL http://www.fanslyon.com/piwigo/index.php?/category/134 this one's dedicated to tsigalko:
confirmation of rapinoe's signing is taking a while, but she's all the way off in australia... let's hope her dad is not like malbranque's! but an official OL statement says they will recruit in all sectors, from asia and north america, and ohno is a done deal.