Following a blatant handball by a Lyon defender that the referees failed to call, Jose Mourinho made the obvious substitution and decided to take out Emmanuel Adebayor, who was playing as Real Madrid’s lone (and extremely ineffective) striker, and put Karim Benzema on the field. Ozil and Benzema then forced the ball from a Lyon player, Ozil passed to Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldo passed it to Benzema. Benzema then refused to give the ball to anyone, on either team, ran parallel to the goal, and let go of a well-aimed strike that sailed into the back corner of Lyon’s goal, of his former team’s goal.
Karim Benzema has five goals in this UEFA Champions League. Real Madrid suddenly felt like they had the win. Until that goal, which came in the 66th minute, RM and Olympique Lyonnais were at each other’s throats during the Round of 16 encounter yesterday at the Stade de Gerland. There were strong kicks and arguments, and physical play was in abundance.
The match was supposed to be RM’s revenge after Lyon, a minnow that barely made it onto RM’s map last season, managed to defeat RM in the Round of 16 tie of last year’s UEFA Champions League. And, when Karim Benzema, a former Lyon player, came on and proved Fiorentino Perez, RM’s president, right, RM felt like the win was theirs. Suddenly, Ozil was subbed out for Marcelo, one of RM’s most over-rated players, a defensive left wing whose defense is so poor that he went on yesterday as a midfielder. That should have been a signal, because it meant that Mourinho, RM’s head coach, was going for an all or nothing win.
Yesterday, when previewing this match, I wrote that RM’s biggest fault is its confidence. So, when they went into all-out attack mode, after an hour of measuring up Lyon’s strengths and weaknesses, and of playing against Lyon with respect, and after respectfully scoring a goal against Lyon, I got a little worried. If a system was working and if it was clear that Real Madrid could score against Lyon without going all-out, and if Lyon should have been the one to attack, being down by one goal, why was Real Madrid suddenly advancing its lines just a bit? And then, of course, it would be a foul by Marcelo, one of the most over-rated players. Of course, the goal would come from a free kick following a stupid and careless foul by Marcelo.
Gomis scored Lyon’s goal in the 83rd minute. Only a minute later, Marcelo lost the ball again and it would have been a very dangerous play, yet again, for Real Madrid had it not been for dumb luck that the team won the ball back. Real Madrid continued its attacks for the remainder of the match but the draw was there. They retain an away goal advantage over Lyon but should they lose by 1-0 in Madrid on March 16, that away goal will not be worth very much.
As Lyon showed throughout the match, they are up to scoring against Real Madrid and know how to attack the Spanish giants from the wings and to use the counter-attack effectively. Unfortunately for Lyon, they wasted most of the first half with bland attacks that were rarely threatening for goal-keeper Iker Casillas. The match in Madrid will be a fascinating one, given the fact that the first leg was, so far, one of the most evenly matched and exciting matches of the entire Round of 16. However, Real Madrid will know that they have now gone seven matches without defeating Lyon and that they had victory in their hands, and then they threw it away. Lyon might just advance (again).