Winning the Europa League to replay the Champions League: this is Lyon’s ultimate bet, far from European places in Ligue 1, to the point of deferring all its ambitions to the C3 before its quarter-final first leg against West Ham on Thursday ( 9 p.m.).
This journey in the Europa League, where the Lyonnais are still undefeated this season, has been a rare red thread in the disjointed season for OL, which can hardly dream of grabbing the L1 podium (9e eight lengths from third place).
On the European scene, on the other hand, the Gones have won five of their six group matches in C3 against Brondby, Sparta Prague and Glasgow Rangers. Then, in 8e in the final, Lyon eliminated FC Porto (1-0, 1-1), leaders of the Portuguese championship, after a poster that would not have gone wrong in the Champions League.
The “vision” of Aulas
It is the symbol of an OL with two faces: in Ligue 1, Peter Bosz’s team is only the fifth team at home and the 13e outside, with the 8th attack and the 10th defense of the championship.
Lyon does not guarantee consistency and will probably play its last card in the league on Sunday in Strasbourg, 4e with a six-point lead, to hope to snatch a fourth or fifth place synonymous with qualification in the Europa League or Europa League Conference for next season.
But it is the lucrative Champions League that interests President Jean-Michel Aulas, whose club are playing in their eighth European quarter-final since 2000.
And this for obvious economic reasons after two years of absence from the queen event, a period marked by the restrictive measures linked to Covid-19 and the TV rights crisis with the bankruptcy of Mediapro which weighed on the club’s finances. .
The leader even confided on March 31, at a press conference after presenting the club’s new recruit, the Brazilian Tetê, to have had “a vision”.
“This year will be the right one”, he said, referring, quite daringly, to a final victory in the Europa League when only two French clubs (Marseille with the C1 1993, Paris SG with the defunct Coupe des Coupes in 1996) won a European Cup for losing thirteen finals.
Head, the joker
Sunday against Angers in the league (3-2 victory), the Lyonnais did not show great confidence, especially in the defensive field.
“Yes, it was not reassuring, I agree,” admitted assistant coach Claudio Caçapa, who replaced suspended Peter Bosz on the bench.
“That means that we still have to work on a lot of things if we want to go higher and further in the European Cup,” he also warned.
And Olympique Lyonnais is counting on its offensive strengths with in particular the already decisive contribution of the Brazilian joker Tetê, on loan from the Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk. This gave the victory at the end of the game against the Angevins, two minutes after coming into play.
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Even if he is not physically fit to start the matches, his art of dribbling and his sense of goal already give him credit.
In the area of ball recovery, the absence of midfielder Maxence Caqueret, one of Lyon’s best players, who had knee surgery last week, is however a major handicap.
And behind, no professional central back seems to really impose itself, whether it is Jérôme Boateng, out of shape, or Jason Denayer, long injured in an ankle, forcing Peter Bosz to tinker by establishing midfielder Thiago Mendes in their position.
Worrying before facing West Ham? OL are clinging to their last chance to return to greater Europe.
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