CL Preview: Lyon – Barça, Tuesday 2:45pmEST ESPNDeportes

By: Isaiah | February 23rd, 2009

Here we go, folks. It’s the Champions League and it’s back with a big honking dose of Olympique Lyonnais. I’m sure Inara or John will have a solid preview of this match posted soon (if not before this preview goes up), but don’t worry, I’m here to set the record straight, Barça style, or at least Isaiah style.

Let’s talk Lyon, since probably few of us follow the French league:

Lyon is currently in 1st (what’s new?) with a 6-point advantage over second place PSG. They beat AS Nancy 0-2 this weekend to take their overall record to 15W-7D-3L, 52pts, 35GF 16GA. The numbers, broken down, are 2.08pts per game, 1.4GF per game, 0.64GA per game. They are consolidating their lead at the top of the league, and seem to be playing very well at the moment. They haven’t lost since a December 6 trip to Nantes when they lost 2-1. Since, they’ve gone 5W-3D-0L, 13GF 4GA.

They’ve had their share of luck, it would seem, since Youssouf Hadji missed a penalty (saved) in the 50th minute that would have tied the game at 1-1. Instead, on came Karim Benzema and sealed the deal in the 90th. Speaking of substitutions, Juninho (58), Benzema (66), and Ederson (80) all came on as second half subs, meaning they’re a bit more rested than our players. Midfielders Toulalan and Kallstrom played all 90 minutes, while Fabio Grosso stayed on the bench the whole time, in case you were keeping track of them.

Soccernet’s preview of the match points out that Lyon have a shortage of right backs, which makes Henry’s job that much more important. If Messi is going to be quintuple teamed on our right, then our left has to take advantage of that and break the defense to pieces. It didn’t do that in the Espanyol match and that was one of the reasons we lost. If we can capitalize on a weaker back line, then we’ll draw them out of any protective shell they decide to go with (if, indeed, they decide to go with the bus-parking thing – to do otherwise would be suicide, plain and simple) and that will allow the shifty, wonderful runs that Messi can make against an open defense.

This being Lyon’s first game against Barça, they may not fully understand the speed and skill in store for them on the right side (Alves and Messi, backed by the slick passing of Xavi). I don’t doubt that the same is true in reverse, that Barça may be a bit over-confident when it comes to a French team. I mean, sheesh, they’re in Ligue 1! But they’re a solid team, with a very solid midfield and a fantastic, big striker up front. As always, though, the key to defeating Lyon is Juninho. Shut him down and you shut down their engine, their creativity. And for chrissake, don’t give the man any freekicks!

How do we do that? Well, our midfield will be instrumental in all of this, providing both cover for the back 4 and defense-opening passes to the forward 3. What I’m speaking of, naturally, is The Yaya. He hasn’t had the best games over the last few weeks, but he’s been solid and his offense has been stepped up just a tad, — especially against Espanyol when he was asked to fill the entire center of midfield from box-to-box (that he scores is actually immaterial to this statement because he scored on what was virtually a set piece: a rebound he volleyed home). He’ll need to Man-Mountain Yaya (is that redundant) in order to take Juninho out of the match and also Laser Pass Yaya so as to open up the defense with some of those absurd over-the-top lobs he can make whenever he wants to. Or Guardiola lets him, anyway.

Our zone marking is going to have to be perfect tomorrow because of the 35 goals Lyon have scored, 16 came from set pieces. Ruh-roh. So keeping fouls and corners to a minimum is the only real way to keep them off the scoreboard for an entire game. We did well off of set pieces in the Espanyol game (did you notice?) and hopefully we can continue in that particular vein. Was it just Puyol and Marquez’s return that made the difference in that? Or merely that Pique and Cáceres weren’t together in the middle getting everything a bit jumbled up? Impossible for me to say, but it was certainly a better defensive effort throughout the game than against Betis. Especially considering that we were down to 10 men for quite a while.

So, now to Barcelona. How do we approach this match, knowing that many of ours tarters are going to be somewhat tired and quite a few of us are a bit apprehensive about the Atleti match given that Abidal and Iniesta are both out injured, meaning our left side is dangerously weak?

Well, here’s the squad list: Valdés, Pinto, Alves, Sylvinho, Puyol, Víctor Sánchez, Cáceres, Piqué, Márquez, Xavi, Busquets, Gudjohnsen, Keita, The Yaya, Hleb, Messi, Eto’o, Bojan, Henry.

Let’s build from the back, shall we? Valdés it is in goal, despite having 2 weeks in a row where he has made serious blunders in his outlet passing. The first was against Betis when he tried to hospitalize Cáceres with a poor ball through the center of the field when he had Pique out wide. And, of course, there’s the 3-point gift he handed de la Peña in the Espanyol match. But, he’s been fairly solid throughout the year, so we can’t replace him with Pinto, who has had his butterfingers moments too.

Okay, so the rest seems, to me, to be an interesting discussion. Oh no injury crisis, we’re screwed, we only have an absurdly amazing group left to choose from rather than an unbelievably absurdly amazing group. So my back line goes like this: Alves, Puyol, Pique, Caceres. I know I’m dropping Márquez, but he did play 90 against Espanyol and Piqué’s aerial powers are going to be important against a big guy like Benzema. On the wings, I like Caceres’ speed for the same reason that I like Abidal’s speed: stopping the counter. You let the Greyhound do his thing on the wing and it effectively shuts down any opposing right wingers. Supermartin can do the same thing, I believe, like he does for Uruguay. This also allows us to put Sylvinho out on the wing for the Atleti match if we so choose, or to rotate Puyol out there (though I don’t think that’s a good idea).

In the midfield I’d like to see The Yaya, Busi, and Xavi. The reasons for this are fairly simple: The Yaya breaks, Busi cleans up, Xavi distributes. Busi can fill the gaps at the front, as well. The only thing that this does is leaves us a bit empty in the DM department for Atleti. I could see putting Keita in for Busi in that case since he isn’t going to be available for Atleti. I actually like Keita quite a bit and think he adds attacking versatility that Busi doesn’t (perhaps only because of the roles Guardiola has them playing). And Xavi is, of course, Xavi. Keita also tends to drift a bit more to the left than Busi, which could be very useful without Iniesta, unless Busi can be convinced to play more on the left. Hleb would, ideally, be able to fill this role, but I’ve lost so much confidence in him that I can’t bring myself to advocate using him even in the role that he was basically designed to play.

Up front is the trio of wonder: Henry, Eto’o, and Messi. No true explanation is really necessary, I don’t think.

So the full lineup looks like this: Valdés, Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Cáceres, The Yaya, Xavi, Busquets, Messi, Eto’o, Henry.

And now for my official prediction: 1-1. A precious away goal from Messi, who will be back with a vengeance in this match, facing an opponent who doesn’t necessarily know how to chop him down quite so well. Not that Lyon is a bunch of innocent tacklers, but you really do have to play with him to understand the power and speed we’re talking about. At least that’s what I believe. A clean sheet would be magic for us, but I just don’t see it happening in their home.

Visca el Barça!

Category: Team News

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