Lyon Is Slipping

After Real Sociedad ridiculed Lyon again, in the Champions League qualifying play-off round, on Wednesday, the Lyonnais players played another bad match, to reduce what seemed like a very positive start to their season, just a couple of weeks ago, to a distant memory.

This time, OL found itself down 0-2, at half-time, against Evian Thonon Gaillard.

The final score was 2-1, but Lyon is clearly in a slump and they don't look like title contenders. (At least, PSG is getting some good points, but Lyon is not.)

Highlights:

First Really Notable Effort from Reims in a Long Time

Reims' period of glory, at top level in French football, has long passed. The last time they won the French title was in 1962.

And yet Stade Reims holds six national title wins, only one less than Olympique Lyonnais.

But there was no doubt, however, that Lyon was the favourite to win the encounter on this third matchday of Ligue 1.
Especially because Lyon was leading in the standings, and had basically breezed past Nice and Sochaux on matchdays 1 and 2.

Reims, though, proved a much harder nut to crack.

They defended well, played the counter-attack card properly, and were lucky as well.
Yes, luck must be acknowledged because Lyon had a penalty, and thus could have scored in the 72nd minute. But Grenier missed, and the score remained 0-0.
Then, only 4 minutes later, Fortes scored an extremely spectacular diagonal goal from the edge of the penalty area, and that was all in terms of goals.

Reims now has the same number of points as Lyon, while Marseille remains the only team with maximum points (pending Saint-Etienne's match at Lille tomorrow).

Highlights:

France - UEFA Club Competitions Participants - 2013-2014

Paris Saint-Germain --> Champions League Group Stage
Olympique Marseille --> Champions League Group Stage
Olympique Lyon(nais) --> Champions League Third Qualifying Round
OGC Nice --> Europa League Play-off Round
Saint-Etienne --> Europa League Third Qualifying Round
Girondins Bordeaux --> Europa League Group Stage

Remember Valenciennes?

30 September 2012. Marseille's first dropped points of the season. Valenciennes - Marseille 4-1. 3-0 at half-time. 4-0 in minute 63.

Well, the OM fans experienced deja-vu today, but got the home-field experience this time.

Olympique got crushed, 1-4 (with the last goal again scored by them), by Lyon this time. Lyon, a team that, even though it now leads in the standings, was humbled at Toulouse, 0-3, just two days before.

Marseille now has a goal difference of only +3, too, far worse than all the other teams in the top-7 in Ligue 1.
If I had to guess, I would say that Marseille is pathetic, they are lucky to be so high in the standings, and there's no way they can win the French league this year.

And they're already out of the Coupe de la Ligue, too, a tournament which they won last year.

Looks like another team in need of drastic changes. Too bad it doesn't have PSG's investors.

See the 'disaster' here.

Comedies of Errors from the Top Two in France

Both Olympique Marseille and Olympique Lyonnais got quite a beating on Sunday.

At 14:00 CET, at Valenciennes, Marseille seemed to have forgotten how to defend. The first goal, scored by Danic in the 16th minute, showed their inability to defend free kicks. And the second (in minute 34) and fourth (63), scored by Le Tallec, made their defensive marking look very poor. But it was Mandanda's amazing blunder (39) that truly made Marseille look like an amateur side.

So, one of the three remaining teams with a perfect record in their respective leagues falters. (And badly.) Barcelona and Bayern remain.

Seven hours after Marseille screwed up so badly, Lyon, formerly second in the standings, faltered, too. Their players were probably irritated by their own inability to break down Bordeaux's defenses as time was winding down.

In the 65th minute, Lyon defender Lovren deflected a ball past his own goalkeeper (while seeming quite worried about not handling the ball but not at all aware that not blocking the ball with all your might could spell trouble for those behind you).
In any case, Bordeaux went up 1-0, and they would not give that up.

On the contrary, they got a second goal, in the 82nd minute, when two Lyon defenders failed to intervene properly and Diabate was able to get in a header that sneaked past the goalkeeper and the bemused defenders.

So, this was a big matchday for Paris Saint-Germain, it seems.
Ancelotti's team now sits only three points behind Marseille, and one ahead of Lyon. They are in second, of course.

Highlights from Valenciennes - Marseille:


See highlights from Lyon - Bordeaux here.

France - UEFA Club Competitions Participants - 2012-2013

Montpellier HSC --> Champions League Group Stage
Paris Saint-Germain --> Champions League Group Stage
Lille OSC --> Champions League Play-off Round
Olympique Lyon(nais) --> Europa League Group Stage
Girondins Bordeaux --> Europa League Play-off Round
Olympique Marseille --> Europa League Third Qualifying Round

Crazy, Crazy Ending in the EPL Title Chase

After many instances in which Manchester United found itself on the winning side of last-gasp victories, most notably the Champions League final in 1999, their fans witnessed a monumental loss in extra time today.

Yes, Manchester United lost even the last trophy it could possibly win this year, the English Premier League title, after Manchester City players were able to score two goals after the 90th minute of their match against Queens Park Rangers (and one of these goals was actually scored after the conclusion of Man. U. 's game at Sunderland, as everybody who likes Man. U. was waiting to be able to start celebrating).

Speaking of which, this game, against Sunderland, did not seem to hang in the balance at all.
United for sure couldn't have scored 10, to be sure of a title win on goal difference (and maybe they should get some advice from Lyon on how to get teams - see Dinamo Zagreb - to step aside and lose at large goal differences), but they were always the team most likely to score next. At the end, also, they were just trying to pass the time safely, no doubt paying more attention to the game in Manchester than to their own exploits. Thus, in the last minutes, the Man. U. team was many times seen just passing the ball randomly so the time could run down quicker. And was that apathy, or what, from Sunderland?

QPR, though... totally different story! They did play the best game of their season, probably. And was there some compensation promised from United?
(I don't know.)

But, in my opinion, there was another factor that changed QPR a bit during the last few minutes of the match.
See, they were up 2-1. But Bolton, the team trailing QPR, was also winning 2-1, at Stoke. Man. City was missing chance after chance. And the QPR team maybe thought there was no way for City to score two goals when they could barely score one (with Zabaleta's goal even seeming to have gone in by accident) in almost eighty minutes.
And then it happened. In minute 77, Stoke City equalized against Bolton, and that score meant QPR no longer needed a win. A draw was not necessarily needed, either, anymore. And for sure QPR thought they would at least get a point against Man. City, considering how the game was going.

So, with the news from Stoke becoming known at the Etihad Stadium, Dzeko perhaps scored from amidst a bunch of players already thinking of their well-deserved vacations, and sure of their Premiership survival.
For sure, QPR did not want to lose, but I think Dzeko's goal discombobulated them.
Additionally, Aguero's goal was lucky, too, because Balotelli got an amazingly inspired touch of the ball, that fooled three QPR defenders, just as he was falling down, to set up Aguero's finish.

But all of that circus, and having their fans go from crying in despair to unexpected joy in extra time, should have totally been avoided.
Manchester City tortured their fans by almost letting slip away a win that they should have secured easily in the first place.
They were up 1-0 against the team with the worst away record in the Premier League. How do you screw that up? Well, Tevez and company, or should I say Lescott and Kompany, almost did. Cisse's and Mackie's goals should never have been.

Of course, in the end, City did very well to get back on track for the title, but it should have been way easier. That's all I'm saying.

Manchester City was certainly better than Manchester United this season. But they need to improve to win more titles, that's for sure. If they let another team come from behind, like this year, to secure an eight-point lead in the standings, with 6 matches to go, next year, for sure City won't come back to win the title in the same kind of dramatic fashion.

And yes, for those who give two cents, Bolton was the one relegated, not QPR, in spite of the amazing loss.

See highlights here.

By the way, Mark Hughes, QPR's coach said "Manchester City got lucky", not long after the match. A better commentary than anything Alex Ferguson had to say.

Lille Just Sucks

You know how sometimes there's a team you just can't help but feel sorry for, because their results are so much worse than their efforts deserve? (...Like the total opposite of Man. U....)

Well, this year, out of all the leagues, it's gotta be Lille, from France.

They should have finished second in their Champions League group, if the logical results would have happened. Instead, they could not beat Trabzonspor, at home (0-0), and inter Milan sucked at home, against CSKA (1-2), leaving the French outfit lament their shortcomings: not even a Europa League spot, and just two points away from going through in the CL.

In the French league, they have a team good enough to win the title, which they achieved last season, as a matter of fact. But they keep dropping points at random moments, or in the last minutes of the game, or just simply due to lack of concentration, in many, many games, now.

Today, for example, they lost against Lyon, 1-2, away.

Lyon needed that win to keep alive their hopes of reaching a Champions League spot.
Funnily enough, that spot is currently held by Lille.

I'm willing to bet, however, that they won't still have it for long. It's not lonely in those parts of the French standings: Saint-Etienne, Toulouse, Lyon and Rennes are all now just within 4 points of Lille.
Only a short while ago, Lille was quite comfortable in third, with a game or two (sometimes) in hand.

Highlights:

[www.online-soccer.ru] Lyon 1-0 Lille by all-goals

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

The Match That Changed the Leader

PSG scored a (minor) victory, a draw and a loss today.

It may sound incredible, but one could certainly argue for all three.
The last-gasp equalizer from the in-form striker Guillaume Hoarau, to make it 4-4 at Stade Gerland, was celebrated as a victory by the Parisian players and staff.
On the other hand, failing to win in Lyon means PSG loses their first-place position, in favour of excellent Montpellier, who managed to get its fifth win in six previous matches today.
The draw, of course, is the actual score.

A very honourable mention should go to Hoarau, who also scored against Montpellier last week, again in the dying moments of the game. That's one player who delivers!

But, although they showed great tenacity to get the point with literally seconds left on the clock, PSG players played a poor game today.
They allowed three goals in six minutes, between minutes 34 and 40, which ruined the game for them.

And Paris Saint-Germain's defense mechanism was a terrible disappointment. (Not even to mention that their attackers missed a sitter or two, or maybe even three, in the second half.)

In addition, Lyon is no longer a team to be feared terribly, as perhaps they were three or four years ago. Caen beat them, in Lyon, just two weeks ago. And Caen is struggling, below mid-table.

So, basically, Paris SG did badly. Ancelotti did badly. And PSG is now second.
It's up to Montpellier now to build on their momentum.

Watch highlights from Lyon - PSG 4-4 here.
Highlights from Montpellier - Bordeaux 1-0:

Lucky Lyon

After probably striking a deal with Dinamo Zagreb at half-time, I would think, considering how that match was progressing at that point and how it eventually concluded, the team from Lyon was also lucky to get the weakest Champions League group winner in the draw for the second round. (Where's the fairness?)

But it wasn't as easy as Lyon may have expected.

Overall, the home win was probably deserved, but I hope APOEL is going to perform much better in Nicosia.

Alexandre Lacazette scored the winning goal, in minute 58.

Caen Performs

SM Caen always plays good football against Olympique Lyonnais.
They had beaten the Lyon team at home, on September 29, 2011, and they did it again today, at Stade Gerland.

Caen even lead 2-0 for 13 minutes, from minute 73 till minute 86, when Lopez reduced the deficit for the hosts, from the penalty spot.
And what an amazing goal by Nabab!

Now, one third of all Caen victories in Ligue 1, this season, came against Lyon.

And, given Montpellier's victory against Ajaccio, 3-0, Lyon falls to 10 points behind the leaders. (And that gap could increase by three more points tomorrow, if PSG wins at Nice.)
The title dream should be over for Lyon. Not that they were deserving to be in the title chase, anyway.

Highlights:

What happened, Olympique?

Minute 35 of the match at Stade Velodrome. Marseille leads Lyon 2-0. Brandao has just scored a cool goal. And OM looks in total control.

But that's as good as it would get for the team from the south of France.

One minute later, a Brazilian-like, playful, training-ground flick from Briand, with his heel, puts the ball, randomly but conveniently, right at the foot of Gomis, who makes it 2-1.
Lucky for Lyon.
Okay, but Marseille still should win this game.
But not only does Marseille fail to score any other goal, but daydreamer Diawara makes sure to beat his own goalkeeper with a clearance that would shame even an amateur beginner. (And this guy played at an international country-level tournament like the African Cup of Nations?...) He gifts Lyon the draw, and with the last kick of the first half, too, unfortunately for his team.

The second half is lackluster, and the score remains unchanged.

Highlights:

Is Montpellier for Real?

Montpellier HSC never won Ligue 1.
But they've been doing better and better in the past few seasons. Maybe they can be a contender, finally.

The game against Lyon certainly showed that they can play well in crucial games. They certainly outplayed Lyon, and they more than deserved the resulting scoreline:

tirs = shots; cadres = on target

Clearly, based on the statistics, Montpellier was the team that attacked throughout this derby.

But can Montpellier keep up against PSG, Marseille (who's climbing fast in the standings) and maybe even Lyon?
...Although Lyon clearly is not a great team. They could never score 7 goals in one game, without outside help... (For those who might have a hard time placing this allusion, it hints at the last game Lyon played in the CL in 2011, in Zagreb.)

This link has streaming highlights.