LYON 0 - 4 Olympique (380325759)

Overcast weather free of rain made for a crowd turnout of 6312 at Antier Lasseu today. Antti-Pekka Maksimo was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Żytomir Pietrucha and Olaf Vermaat. A 3-4-3 alignment was the formation of choice for LYON. They fielded: Hoarau - Aytar, Moço, Berthélémy - Duprat, Hansson, Boogaard, Gratien - Cohen, Mereles, Blondel.

Olympique started off with a 5-4-1 lineup. Starters: Pêcheur - Agelet, Gerhards, Casale, Catelain, Harmes - Terrasson, Aznares, Coristanco, Correia Rodrigues - Delauney.

LYON mostly ignored the flanks in favour of their ability to attack in the middle. Olympique clearly had decided to counter-attack when they could. Z. Aznares came close to putting the visiting team one up 9 minutes into the match, following a solo raid down the middle, but J. Hoarau managed to tip the ball to a corner. The crowd gasped as É. Terrasson of Olympique was flattened by an opponent after 13 minutes and had to be carried off. A. Echols came in off the bench. With 15 minutes played, the visitors broke through on the right after some poor defending. E. Correia Rodrigues put the ball away for 0 - 1. With 19 minutes played, Olympique put themselves up 0 - 2 after an attack from the right, caused by a defensive blunder. The scorer was A. Echols. After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, P. Mereles got himself booked. The manager of LYON was not happy. 0 - 2 was the score after the first half. Olympique enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 70 percent of possession.

Although the whole team were struggling to impress, LYON's A. Berthélémy was singled out as being the problem as he was called off the pitch after 70 minutes. J. Combette was given a chance to change things around. The visitors' Z. Aznares took advantage of a misunderstanding between the home side's goalie and centre backs 73 minutes into the match. 0 - 3 for Olympique. After 75 minutes, LYON switched S. Duprat with L. Burgard, hoping for a quick impact on the pitch. With 80 minutes played, the LYON coach decided a substitution may help turn the game around. F. Galley came on, D. Cohen had to leave the fray. The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave H. Coristanco from Olympique a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 81 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! J. Combette's knee will be throbbing for days, but thankfully for LYON, he bravely continued in the match. After 83 minutes, a mistake by the home side's left defence allowed E. Casale to get through. He outclassed the home side's keeper, adding another goal for the visitors. 0 - 4. The players of Olympique now seemed to think the job was done and acted more defensively, just waiting for the ref to blow the final whistle. Olympique had most of the ball, with 71 percent of possession.

LYON's top performer was clearly F. Galley. However, J. Hoarau made a disastrous appearance. Most important Olympique player was H. Coristanco. R. Agelet was a disappointment, however. The match ends 0 - 4.