review- lyon vs real madrid

benzema scored against his former club

the clash of last year...repeated again at the same stage!.....lyon managed a win against the 9 time champions back then....this time however real had a newfound spirit under jose mourinho and a better squad and were looking all the more dangerous!....they needed a win to put them comfortable for the second leg which they now really need to progress from having not gotten past this stage for the past 6 years...but yet could only manage a draw in what was a fairly interesting encounter!
claude puel started his regular 4-2-3-1 line up with lloris in goal, reveillere,cris(*captain*), lovren and cissokho in defence..toulalan and gourcuff in midfield, bastos, kallstrom and delgado in front of them and gomis filling into the lone strikers role which the injured lisandro normally occupies!
this was to be the first time karim benzema would play at the stade de gerland after making his big money move to real, but he was on the bench with kaka while mourinho also started his favorite 4-2-3-1 formation with casillas(*captain*) starting in goal, ramos, pepe(*finally back from injury*), carvalho and arbeloa in defence...alonso and khedira in midfield with di maria, ozil and real's man in form cristiano ronaldo in front of them...adebayor was in attack!.....
the match began at a frantic pace and stayed that way for quite a while with no side gettin any clear possession on th ball!...madrid were dominating it though a lil bit although lyon probably had the better of the chances with bastos a continuous threat down the flanks!....gourcuff marshalled th midfield superbly and most of lyons early chances were created through him....one person who wasnt performing at all however....was reals no7!....those of you who watched the game will have noticed how easily the former manchester united star was giving away possession in tryin to be over smart on the ball with all his fancy tricks!...in fact his only real contribution to mardids cause was a free kick in the 20th min when ozil was brought down by gourcuff some 28 yards out and even that wasn struck well enough and lloris was able to parry it away!....at the other end gomis got a GLORIOUS chance to take lyon 1 up when the french side broke quickly following a madrid corner and the ball was played out wide to bastos who put a cross in that wasn caught properly by casillas....it fell straight to the feet of the striker but he his his effort well over the bar!...
SECOND HALF
real were better in the second half and so was ronaldo...who came VERY close to scoring in the opening stages of the second half with a freekick from the right side of the box which seemed a very tight angle but he somehow managed to get enough power and swerve to direct it past lloris but unfortunately also past the center of the goal and it hit the framework!...ramos then struck the post with a header from an ozil corner!.....real uped the tempo from there and were a constant threat to lyons defence which started looking a bit more shaky!....in the first half lyons 4 in midfield were constantly closing down reals mid and players like ozil weren being able to create anything at all!....during the second however half however reals player seemed to be much quicker and the passing was a lot better which was creating chances!....
benzema was brought on for adebayor and the former lyon man certainly got a welcome reception from his former fans!....however th cheers soon turned to an orchestra of boos when after jostling well for the ball with toulalan, he got possesion of the ball and layed it onto ozil...the german played it square to ronaldo who first touch through balled it to benzema and the no9 took a few touches inside the box to settle himself before slotting it past lloris who did get a touch on it but it wasn strong enough!...
th rest of the match just seemed to go on with patches of it gettin really boring at times!...real defended well for most of the match but then they were broken....a freekick came in from gourcuff which hit the wall and came in high towards the defence...cris...who had had a very very good match won th header and it dropped really kindly to gomis who calmly slotted it past casillas who was left shouting at his defenders!....have to say lyon did deserve that goal after the impressive game they had!
all in all a good game of football and a good performance from lyon who in my point of view managed to rescue the match because of 1 sole reason...ozil, th man through whom all of reals attacks are channeled was man marked very very well and wasn given any space to create!..this meant that the attacks were having to go through the wings which lyon dealt with very well...obviously a pre-planned strategy!...mourinho will be confident though that his side can go all the way in th second leg as real have been very impressive at home and mourinho extended his own personal record of home wins to 9 years now without a defeat!....a very remarkable achievement indeed!