This Thursday, Lyon welcome Chernomorets Odessa to the Stade Gerland for their seizièmes de finale second leg, after a goalless draw in Ukraine last week. There was much talk before the first leg about the squad selected by Remi Garde, with a choix entraineur list so long it didn’t fit on L’Equipe’s match graphic, nine first-team regulars being left behind (along with Gourcuff, blessé), and the only regular starter amongst them being Milan Bisevac, who was coincidentally suspended for the match against Lille at the weekend. Nine changes were made to the starting eleven that had come up against Ajaccio the weekend previously, only Bisevac and midfielder Jordan Ferri retained.
They lined up with five at the back, young right-back Mehdi Zeffane playing as left wingback to accommodate younger Corentin Tolisso on the right. Bisevac, Bakary Koné and little-used U20 World Cup-winner Mouhamadou-Naby Sarr were in the centre, Remy Vercoutre replacing Anthony Lopes in goal. Jimmy Briand was up-front (the only centre-forward in the squad) with a midfield of Ferri and the older heads in the group, Arnold Mvuemba, Steed Malbranque and Gael Danic. Between them, they had 65 league starts this season.
This kind of approach was perhaps the reason for the email we received on the morning of the first match, asking “have they been trying in the Europa League?”. Well, yes. Sort of. At least at the beginning. And a point away in Ukraine does set the second leg up well. With a crunch game against Lille the following Sunday, resting key players and doing ‘just enough’ was a sensible idea. Garde has played the Europa League quite smartly in the calculated risk department.
Looking back, there was the embarrassment of the CL play-offs, when they lost 2-0 home and away to Real Sociedad, when Bafetimbi Gomis and Jimmy Briand were still playing with the reserves. They came back in for the Europa League, and for the first three matches at least, Lyon were playing pretty strong teams with one or two youngsters, possibly to avoid any further embarrassments. However, the league form was bad and they were slipping down the table. The 5-1 drubbing at Montpellier saw them drop to 14th, and then they could only manage a draw at home to Bordeaux. They beat Croatian side HNK Rijeka 1-0 at Gerland to make it 5 points from the first three Europa games, having drawn away at Real Betis and at home to Vitoria Guimaraes.
From the fourth game (a 1-1 draw at HNK Rijeka), you could say Garde took his foot off the gas a bit, selection-wise, but that was understandable as they were still hovering around the bottom half in the league, and every Europa match from now on was before a key league game. In that match, therefore, they started with Danic and four youngsters (Zeffane, Sarr, Ferri and Alassane Plea) – then they went away and won at Saint-Etienne. Back up to 8th.
The next match, at home to Betis, was a bit more tricky to manage as Lyon were on 6 points and their guests on 8, so it was likely to be the key game for winning the group. However, they were going to PSG three days later. Thus, they went a bit ‘B’ (Malbranque starting, Gomis only coming on at half-time) but using experienced heads rather than untried youngsters (Samuel Umtiti the youngest starter, but definitely a fixture in the first team). They beat Betis, so took advantage going into the last match, but eight of the starting eleven were retained for the 4-0 tonking at the Parc des Princes, so perhaps here, Garde miscalculated – but to the benefit of their European campaign.
Another annoying home draw against Toulouse followed, and there was another big league match coming up (Marseille, which ended 2-2). Thus, with the Betis match out of the way and qualification pretty much assured, when they went away to Vitoria Guimaraes it was another slightly second-string team (four youngsters – including Tolisso, who we had to look up – and Danic again) that prevailed, and it is noticeable that Gomis was removed immediately after scoring a penalty to level the scores; with the opposition down to ten men, Garde was presumably happy to take the point, although Ferri then popped up immediately after the substitution with the winning goal.
The break from the Europa League seemed to do Lyon good, winning five out of seven league games in 2014, only a 2-0 defeat away at Rennes going against them, and most recently a 0-0 draw with Lille – and bearing in mind that they were fighting on various domestic fronts as well, reaching the final of the Coupe de la Ligue and pottering through a couple of rounds of the Coupe de France before being beaten by Lens with an injury-time equalising penalty, and a goal in extra time. With that cup final not until later in April, and having made their way back up to sixth, Garde needs to balance the competing needs of league and Europa again.
While Lyon will be satisfied with the away draw and the clean sheet, all things considered, Chernomorets will be less happy; with key playmaker Sito Riera suspended (for both legs), it was midfielder Ivan Bobko and winger Franck Dja Djedje (cousin of Brice) who made much of the running in setting things up for topscorer Oleksiy Antonov, who is something of a blunt instrument, but, facing three central defenders, could not batter his way through. They had most of the ball, naturally (mandatory stat-tack: possession 61%, pass completion 82.5%), and managed a dozen shots; although Lyon had eleven, and were more accurate with their efforts, what the home team put together seemed more threatening than the visitors. Tolisso got into good positions but showed his greenness at the finish with two efforts wide and over; more pointedly, Briand had only one clear shot, Danic two from open play, and was also on free-kick duty. Lyon relied on strong defending and a traditionally good performance from Vercoutre to keep the clean sheet, while not making life particularly difficult for Past in the opposition goal. Obviously, they will need to add some firepower to the team for the second leg – step forward Alexandre Lacazette and Bafetimbi Gomis.
This time, the following league match is at home to Montpellier, who are clearly less of a challenge than the top-five teams who have hoved into view after previous Europa matches. However, they are in decent form and that 5-1 at Mosson does need avenging, so Garde has another exercise in risk calculation to make.
