Wednesday 7 March 2012

Yes! APOEL!

I think justice has been done.

Lyon deserved to be out of the Champions League, and nothing could convince me that they won 7-1 in Zagreb deservingly.

And, luckily, APOEL took them out in the very next phase.

The Cypriot team played much better than in the first leg, but they could only keep the scoreline at 1-0, thanks to a Manduca goal in minute 9. He had slotted the ball in the empty net after a great pass from Charalambidis.

The only time Lyon played a little bit better than the Nicosia team was in the first half of extra time.

On penalties, the minnows held their nerves admirably. Lyon, on the other hand, missed their last two, which made APOEL's last spot kick unnecessary.


APOEL had never been in a penalty shootout before, in a European competition.

But now they can add Olympique Lyonnais to their impressive list of higher-ranked defeated opponents: Wisla Krakow, Zenit (the only one of these teams not actually eliminated by APOEL), Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk (and maybe even Slovan Bratislava), and getting the decisive edge on penalty kicks certainly does not diminish the merit of the team from Cyprus' capital..

See highlights here.
Highlights:

APOEL 1-0 Olympique Lyon (4 - 3) by Futbol2101

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