Last night saw Paris St. Germain bring to an end Olympique Lyonnais’ four year unbeaten run in D1 and potentially cause a major change in the destination of the French title for the first time in fifteen years. Jean-Pierre Thiesset gives his opinion on the big game.
Last night, Lyon lost 1-0 to Paris St. Germain – a result which ends a run of 80 games without loss in the D1 championships (for our report on the game, click here: https://impetus885775742.wordpress.com/2020/11/20/battle-of-the-big-guns-goes-psgs-way/)
Some will say that it can happen, but when we see how Lyon lost, it is a little disturbing. The team was not in the game and there had been too many errors and too many duels that were lost. In my opinion, apart from Delphine Cascarino, Ellie Carpenter and Sakina Karchaoui, who tried to play and do something, all the other players were way under their usual performance levels.
I remember discussion with a few OL fans about the level of their midfielders a few months ago, saying that they were not back to their usual performances and that this would penalize the team; they may have been right.
Furthermore, Lyon lost Eugénie Le Sommer with injury, a tear on the inside of the left thigh that will probably keep her out of action for a few weeks and prevent her playing with the France national team at the end of November. If you add to this Valérie Gauvin who is already out after injury for Everton in the Women’s FA Cup Final and Marie-Antoinette Katoto, from PSG, who is also injured and may not be available, the France team will probably have to play against Austria without a recognised central striker.
Is it the beginning of the end of the huge domination of Lyon in French women’s football? The future will tell us and especially the return game against PSG next year and the Women’s UEFA Champion League games that will soon be on their schedule.
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