There were two Olympiques…

By: Magnusson | November 11th, 2007

What a game! Seriously one of the best games yet this year. I don’t care that we won and that we could’ve scored more. Lyon could’ve scored some goals as well. Defensively both teams were lacking some grip except Squillacci at Lyon and Rodriguez for us. The game was technically way higher than what could be expected. Samir Nasri is still not 100% but he’ just showed how much better than his opponents he can be. I know ‘everyone is waiting for Nasri and Benzema to play together in the French National Team but I really want to see Nasri and Benarfa play together. They could be paired like Zidane and Ribery somewhere. Benarfa was a lot less tired than Benzema and it showed. What a game from him and Sidney Govou who is going to be elected Player of the Year if he continues this way.

On our team, everybody seemed concerned and motivated. Ayew Pelé and Mathieu Valbuena worked their sides all day. They both were constant threats to their counterparts, Belhadji and Clerc and were both going back to defend very low. I won’t even start talking about Mamadou Niang. You all know how much I love the kid and I talked about it enough before not to write a love sonnet to him today. Just make sure Sevilla doesn’t grab their hands on him after the African Cup of Nations.

Steve Mandanda, Steve Mandanda, Steve Mandanda, Steve Mandanda, Steve Mandanda, Steve Mandanda. Ok so we knew he was good but if I was Gregory Coupet and Michael landreau, I’d be making sure to gracefully bow out of the National team before he Gigi Buffones all of them. Charles Itandje, Yohan Pelé and Hugo Lloris all got relegated in the “Best Young Keeper” race.

Lorik Cana got me worried when he received a yellow card at the eleventh minute because he usually gets inhibited when he gets a yellow card this early in the game but his pairing with Modeste M’bami reminded all Parisian fans of the team they had when they managed to go to the Champions League. Ronald Zubar, replacing an injured Gael Givet at the 32nd minute (Gaêl hurt his ankle while he was practicing before the game. he tried but his ankle was killing him), gave a pretty great performance even though benarfa showed him up a few times.

Laurent Bonnart in his second match at his real position may have permanently replaced Taye Taïwo, shameful aganst Porto. Jacques Faty is getting there technically and gave a nice alternative to Eric Gerets. Zenden was helpful when he got in but we didn’t see Cissé and it was hard to imagine him in this kind of games. Even Gerets didn’t want to gamble and put Cheyrou in for Mbami when the latter was tired.
Here are the videos:

Juninho, 7′ (Lyon 1-0 Marseille)

Niang 13′ (Lyon 1-1 Marseille)

Niang, 43′ (Lyon 1-2 Marseille)

Now that it is the third incredible game in as many weeks, Canal+ will have to pay more money to the Ligue now that the negociations have started. What a game, what a result for us too.
If we needed a reference game, let’s take this one rather than the liverpool game. Lyon took us seriously and aside from an exhausted Benzema, they had their best available team (I don’t know how much better than Fabio Santos Jérémy Toulalan could have been , even though we can hope Grosso is better than Cleber Anderson).So it was a Lyon team that REALLY wanted to win at home that we defeated tonight. Now of course we’re gonna lose to Metz at home in two weeks.
I’m happy that we’re out of the red zone before the International break.