Lyon 1-1 Real Madrid: all square in tight game
The starting line-ups
Karim Benzema scored on his return to Lyon, but Bafetimbi Gomis netted a late equaliser.
Claude Puel fielded a 4-2-3-1 system, making just one change from the weekend game. Jimmy Briand’s spectacular bicycle kick against Nancy wasn’t enough to keep him in the side, so Brazilian Michel Bastos played instead.
The only minor surprise from Jose Mourinho was at left-back. Marcelo was left out, Alvaro Arbeloa started.
Real were slightly subdued throughout the contest, and the game was static for periods, with neither side really wanting to take the initiative and both preferring to wait for counter-attacking opportunities.
The game was never ‘poor’, but for spells it wasn’t interesting tactically. It was 4-2-3-1 v 4-2-3-1, the game had no overall pattern, both goals had an element of fortune to them, and neither manager conclusively out-tacticed the other. The points to take from this game were minor.
Arbeloa-Ronaldo combination misfires
The combination of Arbeloa and Cristiano Ronaldo down the left didn’t work particularly well. It was widely assumed that Mourinho omitted Marcelo because he wanted someone more defensively secure in this match, but the defensive nature of Arbeloa actually invited pressure and made Real slower and more predictable with the ball.
It’s questionable whether a side can successfully function with two wrong-footed players on the same wing. The tactical trend of last season was to play ‘inverted’ wingers, but these were almost always used in conjunction with attacking full-backs. It’s a two-way system – the winger coming inside creates space for the overlapping full-back, and the overlapping full-back stretches the play to open up play for the winger.
Real tried to play through Ronaldo, so Lyon made plenty of interceptions in their right-back zone
When you have a winger looking to come inside and shoot (as Ronaldo inevitably does) in conjunction with a wrong-footed full-back who doesn’t stretch the play, you become quite easy to play against. Ronaldo showed a couple of good moments with stepovers, but his only three attempts on goal came from free-kicks. He offers more than simply goalscoring, but despite being a winger, he is Real’s main goal threat and was stifled here. Marcelo overlapping is a key part of Ronaldo’s game.
Real still tried to play down that flank, meaning Lyon generally won the ball in their right-back position. On the other side, Angel di Maria was tucked in, and also wanted to come inside onto his stronger foot.
Lyon defend well, attack poorly
Lyon had less possession but were more of a threat in the first half. They were often wasteful in the final third, with Bastos and Gomis both wasting promising chances. They were better when Bastos switched to the left of the pitch, where he teamed up with the left-back Aly Cissokho in fast attacks – on the other side, Anthony Reveillere remained in position against Ronaldo.
Lyon coped well in the centre of the pitch – they let Real have the ball in their own half, but then pressed when Real attempted to play it into the front four. There was little drive from Real’s six defensive players and hence no ’surprise’ element for Lyon when defending. Mesut Ozil had a very quiet game – he only influenced the play when he dropped deep or moved to the flanks – the chalkboard of his passing shows an almost perfect ‘wall’ (broken by one solitary pass and two corners) across the final third, that he couldn’t penetrate.
Mesut Ozil barely influenced the game in or around the penalty area
However, Lyon didn’t create much from the middle of the pitch when they won the ball, with Xabi Alonso and Sami Khedira remaining in position.
Second half
Real were better in the second half when they raised the tempo and moved the ball more quickly into dangerous positions. Lyon looked more nervous when their back four was put into action immediately, rather than having the shield of a midfield four as well.
Both managers changed the game from the bench. Benzema’s strike was his first action after coming off the substitutes bench, whilst Puel introduced three new men, all attacking players, which gave Lyon a renewed attacking threat and pushed them forward for the late goal. Mourinho had replaced Ozil with Marcelo, who played on the left of a midfield three along with Lassana Diarra and Alonso.
Conclusion
A draw was probably a fair result. Neither side played particularly well – Lyon didn’t make the most of their opportunities when they got the ball into the final third, whilst Real simply didn’t get the ball into the final third, with Ronaldo blunted, Ozil quiet, and di Maria fairly average.
Still, it is advantage to Real – 11 of the last 14 sides who drew the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie 1-1 away from home eventually progressed, according to Opta.
Chalkboards from TotalFootball
Lyon 1-1 Real Madrid: all square in tight game
Great match and analyse, but Puel has damaged the great team of lyon. Pjanic left out and toulalan at deep medfeild.. Very poo……..
Eee… Toulalan is deep (holding) midfielder, so what do you mean?
I Mean at once upon a time, he was better at build up play now hes usead at pure anchor-man.. Puel even damaged jean makouns’ career too…. ANd kimm kallström at deep medfeild, even at when Houllier was at lyon he win title.. and players playd at their best roles.. All i want to say is that puel is too poo at football management.
I believe that Kallstrom and Toulalan made an excellent job neutralizing Ozil. Because he’s the one who connects all the individualities of MAdrid. We saw in this game, that it is the key of this REal Madrid.
I thought of Gomis as one of the worst strikers I’ve seen in a while. That was 4 minutes before he equalised
. But still I think he was not only completely useless, but also quite harmful for Lyonnais’ offence throughout the match.
The main threat of Lyonnais in Madrid will be Cesar Delgado (who is currently not fully fit) and Lisandro Lopez if he’s back for the return leg. I think Lyonnais simply know how to play against Real, so their situation is not hopeless, but it is indeed quite tricky as they have to score at Bernabeu.
I thought he was a pretty bad too…
In fairness the times they have met Real Madrid have had different coaches, systems and teams and Lyon have had two entirely different teams too so it’s only really true to say ‘Lyon know how to play Madrid’ if you see them as constant entities independant of personnel. I think it is truer to say that the French league is poor and not rated very highly by the better teams of Europe but that that doesn’t mean you can take victory for granted. Auxerre gave a similar game to Real Madrid last year with a similar result but without any history.
I think the defensive nature of Mou backfired in this game. He was defensive when he should have been aggressive and aggressive when he should have been defensive. In the first half, starting with marcelo on the bench was a critical error in judgement. With the away goal rule, you must go out and be aggressive. Kaka sitting on the bench was also a critical error brought on by wanting to be defensive. Kaka is excellent at playing the central midfield role. He connects the back six with the front four. He is very comfortable on the ball and makes great decisions. Most important of all, is his experience in important matches. Kaka would have been a stabilizing force for the middle.
But what really perplexed me was mourinho’s reluctance to go defensive in the final 15 minutes, after securing a 1-0 lead. Taking that victory back to the bernbaeu would have assured victory. Why not make defensive subs at that point?
you say, against levante özil outplayed kaka, although he was just in for 15 minutes. Özil ist the one to feed the individualists with passes and to create room with his movements for the others. Kaka isnt capable of that, right now at least
who says it is ozil or kaka? Against Real Societad both were on the pitch, Ozil was on the right wing playing in DiMaria’s spot, and Kaka was in the center. It was the most fluid and beautiful Madrid game i have seen over the last 2 years.
PS: Lyon at Lyon is different thant Levante at the Bernabeau.
Marcelo has played a lot of games this season, being the only natural left-back in Real Madrid’s squad, so maybe it is to give him a rest?…
I don’t know, but I’m sure Mourinho knows what he’s doing.
Playing both Ozil and Kaka would mean leaving out Di Maria, who IMO had a good season, and is very much a Mourinho-type player (Hardworking, yet with plenty of flair was well).
Of course I agree that dimaria is class. its just that against physical opposition, I would rather see kaka or benzema on the pitch. Especially when they are allowed to foul like Lyon was. you need the experience of kaka or the physicality of Benz.
I don’t think it’s a bad result at all, to get a 1-1 draw away in a cup-tie like this. So to call them critical errors, is quite the overstatement. And don’t you think it’s a defensive sub, to take off your playmaker and bring on a left-back? Mourinho went from his usual 4-2-3-1 to 4-5-1/4-3-3 for the final 15 minutes to see out the game, with Marcelo, Lass and Xabi in the middle.
And to be fair, Lyon’s equaliser was quite lucky. Somewhat deserved, but lucky. They didn’t penetrate Real nor were they particularly threatening, so Mourinhos tactics were spot on to me.
I agree though that Marcelo should’ve started. I love the way he combines with Cronaldo and Özil, plus his also getting better in the defense. Great player.
Lol, I see you didn’t call him by his name and only by his position to support your idea of defensive. Marcelo in is not a defensive move. His defending is his weakness. It also opened up the middle of the pitch.
You have to remember Real has lost their last 3 matches in Lyon (0-3, 0-2, 0-1). Mourinho simply wanted not to lose and then take the game to Bernabeu, where his team feels much more comfortable.
Ozil seemed to be bullied off the ball quiet easily and was slightly underwhelming today. Surely he should have been replaced by Kaka. Adebayor was disappointing with his hold up play today as his touch seemed off. But Adebayor put in a shift and made the defenders work, tiring them out later on. Then Benzema came on and his movement caused problems for the tired defence. I think this is how Jose will continue to use his strikers for the rest of the season. Similar to how Pep Guardiola used a target man in Ibrahimovic vs Inter and then removed him for smaller moving dribblers.
I also think Marcelo is an essential creative element to this Madrid side and makes them more dangerous and fluent going forward, so Jose needs to find a way to fit him in without disrupting the defensive structure of the side. A back four of Arbeloa/Ramos Pepe Carvalho Marcelo, Alonso and Lass as the holding mids, with Lass playing the leftsided role, and the usual front four in their regular positions. Just a simple tweak.
you want to sit Khedira for Lass?
Can you read?
Sergio Ramos played so tucked in that he did not provide any width with Di Maria coming inside as well, which allowed Lyon to defend very narrow (particularly in the first half) thatswhy OL were able to swarm Ronaldo and Ozil so often (Ozil was not allowed to receive and turn once in the game – funny though how his two most forward passes resulted in a goal and a header off the crossbar)
yesterday’s champions league results if any of guys have missed : Lyon [Gomis (83)] 1-1 Real Madrid [Benzema (65)]
That really is quite remarkable how Ozil’s passes, bar the odd one, don’t make it past a certain invisible line. I only saw about 10 minutes of the game myself but Lyon must have kept him really quite to not have had any influence in the final third or so
(Edit) Thanks for the update Laptop Battery
Not really, beyond that point of the pitch were seven Lyon players and three Real Madrid players so who was he supposed to pass it to? Better to retain possession than try an ambitious pass and suffer a counter-attack. Also, I felt the referee was very permissive in allowing Lyon to tactical foul to prevent many Real Madtid counter-attacks so those seven were almost always in position when Real Madrid attacked.
Yes really
WHERE HAS THE PICTURES GONE? THE FORMATIONS DIAGRAM? i mean all this website put for every picture is a frog in a cube with the words saying “unregistered domain. go to imageshack.us to register.” can someone help?!?!??!
ZM has been hacked. Ok, i hope not, but i’m also worried.
As a Madrid fan, I can’t say that I’m totally disappointed going back to the Bernabeu tied 1-1, but to concede such a soft goal hurt. It especially hurt because I personally thought that Arbeloa was terrific defensively (as was the entire back-4 to be honest), and it seemed like he kind of fell asleep and lost track of Gomis.
I was screaming for Mourinho to take Ozil off and replace him with Marcelo on about 50 minutes or so. I thought that letting Marcelo play the left-wing, while pushing Ronaldo more to the center, would a pretty good bet to create more chances.
I want to go back to the defending part though, especially the two full-backs. Both Ramos and Arbeloa did such a terrific job taking Lyon’s wingers out of the game (for most of the game, at least). I was really impressed. I, for one, am a fan of Marcelo, but Arbeloa was pretty great, so I can’t be mad at Mourinho for choosing him instead. And of course we always know that we can rely on Pepe, who was again tremendous.
“It’s questionable whether a side can successfully function with two wrong-footed players on the same wing.”
Actually, Lahm and Ribéry didn’t do too badly, back in the day, at least on a national level.
That being said, I still agree with your point.
im not sure if anybody else noticed, but i think Lyon’s goal was specifically designed to beat the offside trap in that particular way. if you look at Gomis even before the freekick is taken, he’s in an offside position. however, as we all know, defenses usually holds its line right before the freekick is taken, and retreat to defend the on-coming header. if the freekick was designed to be played wide, and headed back in, it would easily explain why Gomis was standing in an offside position to begin with.
I’m not sure if the way I worded this makes sense, but if the play was indeed designed to be played that way, it really is a brilliantly designed play.
all replies and opposing ideas are welcome.
it looks like it indeed
especialy because gomis is the number one heading threat with his size, or at least a big one, and was not placed to receive directly the ball…
but at the same time i think puel was screaming for evbd to go near each other
maybe he didn’t trust gomis to be calm enough on that one
gomis being placed offside at the beginning of the free kick clearly made arbeloa to leave him to cover the space closer to where evbd was
so whether it was designed or not we clearly are in that case, and i won’t be surprised if they planned it because lyon are not a great offensive team, often scoring on counter-attacks, so i think the free kicks are a major way to score goals for them
But the kick hit the wall initially. So they set up their plan by knowing how the ball would deflect off the wall and where it would go? Makes no sense.
They got very lucky on that free kick. First that it deflected off the wall, second that Arbeloa fell asleep and did not mark Gomis and third that Ramos was an idiot and didn’t bring up the offside trap. Very lucky goal.
Weirdish and not very good game, in general, and a lot of tough tackling all over the field that was tolerated mostly by the ref. I think Mourinho got a lot wrong yesterday, and I disagree with some parts of the analysis presented, although I’d agree that the 1:1 is still somewhat of a fair result, considering how bad both team’s attacking was.
a) First of all, I’d mention Adebayor, who was not really mentioned in the analysis. Well, no wonder, because he hardly did anything remarkable, did not win any tackle in front, and did not come deep to get involved in the play or confuse the defenders. Poor and static, and Mourinho did well do replace him by Benzema, who, dropped deep and strayed all around, and immediately turned the game to Real’s favour.
b) It might be, that the Ronaldo-Arbeloa combination did not work well for attacking, but Arbeloa was fantastic defensively, much better than Ramos, who is to blame for the equaliser not creating an offside position. So Marcelo might have helped Ronaldo better in the attacking phases, but, come on, how did superstar Ronaldo get shut down so completely? He did not win any 1on1 via trickery, nor could he outrun any defender. His free kicks were very good, but in open play he was shut out easily.
c) Then, why did Mou change Khedira for Diarra so early? Fresh legs, Khedira injured? To me the only explanation, as Khedira was playing great defensively, and even offered a good deal of goal threat. And, this change was not only early, but tactically redundant. What kind of change was that – was he trying to be proactive against Lyon’s changes about to come? As a result, losing an option without need.
d) Worst of all, the change of Ozil for Marcelo (in min 75!). Ozil was, together with Dimaria, Real’s best and most dangerous player, and he was obviously hungry for more. Ozil basically created Real’s lead, and he might easily have created a second goal on a counter.
e) Mourinho had used three changes up to min 75, and when Ronaldo injured himself a bit later he could not react anymore. That would have been a good moment to bring Marcelo for Ronaldo. Would have stablised the defence with Arbeloa and Marcelo on the left, and would have left options to score a second goal with Ozil organising the counter…
Feel free to criticise my views
You seem to dislike ronaldo. It’s funny since you say ronaldo was completely shut down and did nothing while ozil created the goal…and yet ronaldo had the assist on the goal. Very confusing.
Mou would never take off ronaldo. He is the focus of the Madrid attack. He has 2 or more dfenders swamping him every time he touches the ball. Mou would have to be an idiot to take off ronaldo.
Interesting match report, think you summed it up by saying parts of it were poor, the like for like formations gave little space and made any attacking move punt straight to the wings, Pjanic ommision baffles me particually in a Home Tie were you need to take the initive early.
I would like to point out something on the Arbeloa. Bastos is a terrfic talent, and has an awesome long range LEFT footed strike, isn’t in entirly possible that Mourniho guessed Puel would play Bastos on the Right of midfield and he wanted a RIGHT footed Full back to be able to turn on that side and put in an effective tackle.
You say the Arbeloa-Ronaldo combo failed, I say if Ronaldo was less wasteful and the Bar was 2 inches higher!! then it would not have been noticable, I think Bastos had a quiet night, Job Done, return leg in Madrid will see the return of Marcello.
Well dome Lyon. Good match, Real had a chance to win, but Gomis ruined thier hopes. Congrats to Lyon for good game, and result.
http://www.worldofbasketball.org
Nobody stretched the play on the right for Madrid, leading to congestion in the middle/left part of the pitch. On several occasions Adebayor even went out there because it was so empty, leaving no one to work the channels up front.
I think people are being a bit harsh on Gomis. He was a handful, a got the eventual equaliser. The comments about Arbeloa on Madrid’s left are spot on. He played there last season, and it was a major flaw in our game plan against Lyon. Lets see if Mourinho can correct that in the second leg.
As for the match, I would say it was a classic away performance. Not great, but not bad. Real MAdrid definitely took control in the second half, and Ozil was far more active. Overall Madrid were the better side, and will be very frustrated by Olympique’s late goal.
Kewl… Benzema just in 43 seconds and scored a goal. I hope that stopwatch didn’t wrong.
reminds me of this time when Mourinho was complaining that no-one had bought him the number-9 style striker he wanted and Valdano was like, we have a number 9 (Benzema) already, and he was sitting on the bench… oh right, that was this year.
great analysis, as always, but i have one small bone to pick…
that ‘one solitary pass’ from Ozil was the one to C.Ronaldo who then laid the ball off for Benzema to score. Ozil’s run and pass helped in a big way to create the goal. if RM hold on for the win then Ozil’s done as much as he needs to. Bearing in mind he wasn’t on the pitch when Lyon equalised i’d say he played quite well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmzLJn7cfrA
Fair point – didn’t realise that was involved in the goal, but I still don’t think he had a good game.
If you want to judge Özils passing look no further than this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgfncBFBK78
You can see how Lyon tried to deny him the ball in advanced positions, so he had to drop very deep to get any linkage to the game.
It was interesting however how agressive Lyon attacked him once he managed to get the ball in a dangerous area or was trying to lead a counter attack. They obvously spotted him as the major focal point for their defensive strategy.
When the field began to open up in the second half he immediatly became a lot more dangerous with his passing game.
I think it was mistake by Mourinho to take him off the field for Marcelo, because he could have been the perfect player to lead a counter attack for a decisive second goal in the last 15 minutes.
“…I think it was mistake by Mourinho to take him off the field for Marcelo, because he could have been the perfect player to lead a counter attack for a decisive second goal in the last 15 minutes…”
My words, totally agreed. He was (as usual) Madrid’s most important and influential offensive player.
Concerning my earlier post above: I take back my complaint c). Khedira actually was/got injured, ergo Mourinho was perfectly right to take him off.
Wow, thanks for the vid!
I see arbeloa is a talking point today
first of all madrid were away,they struggled in the first half hour against an agressive lyon team
so i think mourinho did not want his full backs to go forward it’s as simple as that, espacialy because lyon are more dangerous on counter attacks with their wingers than anything else
secondly,the arbeloa being wrong footed thing is nonsense to me
last year marcelo was dreadful against lyon and got replaced at half-time i believe
if you look at the 5-0 barca game you will see marcelo was often not well aligned with the rest of the defense, a got changed for arbeloa in the second half
marcelo is an attacking left back, really useful against little liga teams not very dangerous but he is not a good enough defender, you won’t see him much in the champion’s league in left back position i think, particularly against teams dangerous on the wings like manchester, tottenham, barcelona, munich etc
so i think arbeloa was here because he’s a better defender than marcelo, and mourinho wants to be solid at the back, their front four is good enough to score one goal every game (ronaldo nearly scores every game…) so mourinho relies on them against less good teams at least.
i agree that arbeloa being wrong footed helps him to defend against a wrong footed bastos (which usually plays on the right wing) but it’s more a bonus than a calculated tactic in my opinion
I agree with you largely. I think Bastos would have badly exposed Marcelo’s defensive fraility. If it had ended 1-0 in madrid’s favor it would have been “the special one has done it again”. Sometimes people just want to critise for the sake of criticism!