Author of the winning penalty at the end of the match against UBB, Léo Berdeu is the hero of the evening on the Lyon side. After the match, he returned to this decisive kick, which changed the fate of the match, paying tribute to Quentin Gobet, who died on Friday evening.
Two minutes from the end of the match, the supporters present in the stands of the Matmut Gerland in Lyon thought they would see their team loseagainst Union Bordeaux-Bègles, following a killer try by Damian Penaud. However, Lyon had one more shot to snatch victory on their pitch. After Matthieu Jalibert’s missed conversion, Lou managed to recover his own kick before getting a penalty in the Bordeaux-Bègles camp. Forty meters away and off-center on the left side, this penalty was difficult to take, but it was full of confidence that Léo Berdeu pointed to the posts, before grabbing his tee. “It was really not easy because there was a headwind, says the Lyon opener at the microphone of Canal +. Just before I shot, that wind wouldn’t stop but I knew it was blowing from left to right. Those are goalscorer techniques: I had to aim for the near post and make the wind bring it back between the posts.”
“This has never happened to me before.”
A difficult maneuver to carry out but which was perfectly executed by Berdeu, which crucified the UBB and offered the four points of victory to his team. An unexpected outcome a few seconds before. “I told my teammates that the wind was going to turn and that we might have a star tonight at the end,” Berdeu continues. The latter refers to Quentin Gobet, a Niort player trained in Lyon, tragically passed away on Friday September 13th following a car accident. Berdeu admits: “This penalty was not easy for me, I had cramps but I had a star above my head. I have a tribute to pay to the Gobet family. He is a friend that we lost before the match, we played with him in Espoirs… I am convinced that today, he was there with me, with the whole group.”
A successful tribute and a victory that gives full confidence to Lyonnais who are well on their way to forgetting last season, with two wins in as many games this season. And they owe it all to Berdeu! The hero of the evening savors: “I’m happy for myself because when you score, it’s a childhood dream to give victory on the last action. It’s never happened to me.”
