Sport
the times | Saturday August 15 2020 2GS 7
Progress past Juventus in the Italian
club’s own backyard had been secured
but the president of Lyons Jean-
Michel Aulas was in no mood to
celebrate.
After the French side had lost 2-1 in
Turin last Friday to seal their passage
into the Champions League quarter-
finals on away goals, he spoke of a
scandal and described how the club’s
“heart bleeds”. It was not the normal
tub-thumping speech after a result
that had propelled Lyons into the
last eight for the first time in a
decade.
Acrimony and discord has framed
their season and now, as they look
ahead to tonight’s meeting with
Manchester City, a sense of injustice
continues to fuel their steps.
They arrived in Lisbon in the last-
chance saloon; acutely aware that
unless they mastermind an
improbable triumph in this year’s
competition, next season they will
miss out on playing in Europe for the
first time since 1997.
It is that prospect that has stoked
the ire of Aulas. Rudi Garcia’s side
were fifth in Ligue 1 when travelling
to play Lille on March 8 but slipped to
seventh after losing 1-0 to a Loïc
Rémy goal. The coronavirus
pandemic then took hold, the league
was stopped and did not resume,
leaving Lyons outside the European
standings on points-per-game,
seething and pursuing legal action.
That has, so far, been unsuccessful,
ensuring the onus falls on overcoming
Pep Guardiola’s side at Estadio José
Alvalade and clinging to their one
remaining lifeline.
Recent history, at least, smiles on
Lyons. They are the most recent team
to have beaten City at the Etihad in
Europe — 2-1 in September 2018
when Guardiola watched from the
stands as punishment for being sent
off against Liverpool in the previous
campaign and his side made the sort
of glaring defensive errors that he hasLyons aiming to use sense
of injustice as motivation
stage of the tournament. Rayan
Cherki, who turns 17 on Monday,
scored in the rout in Manchester and
was on the substitutes’ bench in Turin
last week, while Maxence Caqueret
was captain on both occasions.
Caqueret, 20, impressed against
Juventus in a midfield trio with Aouar
and Bruno Guimarães on what was
his Champions League debut. His
performance is already condensed
into bite-sized moments of promise
on YouTube. “He is mature despite
his young age,” Garcia said. “He is
carefree. He plays not for himself, but
to make the team better. Everyone is
to be congratulated, but this kid is
especially to be congratulated.”
Players such as Caqueret offer hope
for the future of the Lyons men’s team
(the women have won 14 consecutive
domestic titles) as they seek to escape
the immediate problems of the past,
which contributed to Sylvinho, the
former Arsenal defender, being
sacked in October after only 11
matches in charge.
Garcia, his replacement, has hardly
been warmly embraced. In February,
Lyons took the remarkable step of
issuing a statement threatening action
against their own supporters for
abusive comments or defamatory
images online in which Garcia was
depicted as a clown.
The absence of the former
Manchester United forward Memphis
from December after he suffered an
anterior cruciate ligament injury did
not help Garcia and one benefit of the
extended season is that the Holland
player is now fit.
Depay made his competitive
comeback in the League Cup final
penalty shoot-out defeat by Paris
Saint-Germain — which had carried
the allure of Europa League
qualification — and scored a Panenka
penalty against Juventus that
brought a crucial away goal in that
2-1 loss.
Only Robert Lewandowski (13) and
Erling Haaland (ten) have scored
more Champions League goals than
Depay (6) this term. He carries
Lyons’ best hope of salvaging reward
from a turbulent campaign, although
Aulas acknowledges it is only a slim
one.
“There is still a chance in one
million,” he said. “We have to play it.
Only a big stroke of luck can overturn
[this] injustice.”continued to witness. City then drew
2-2 in the return in France with
Maxwel Cornet, who had trials with
Liverpool and Everton as a youngster,
scoring twice.
However, perhaps tellingly, Kevin
De Bruyne missed both ties for City
through injury, while Nabil Fekir,
Ferland Mendy and Tanguy
Ndombele have all left their rivals.
The likelihood is that more star
names will follow them out of the
door this summer. Aulas has
predicted that the early end to the
league cost Lyons €100 million (about
£90 million) while missing out on
Europe will mean another €80 million
in lost revenue.
“I think that there will be a fair
amount of departures,” Juninho,
Lyons’ sporting director, told RMC
Sport. “When you have great players,
it is normal that even bigger teams
come to take those players. It is a risk
that we will lose big players. If that is
the case, we will have the right to
balance the squad.”
Memphis Depay, Houssem Aouar,
the 22-year-old homegrown
midfielder that Guardiola has marked
out as an “incredible” talent, and
Moussa Dembélé, formerly of Celtic,
could all have suitors.
Fresh talent continues to emerge,
though, as City can testify. In the
Uefa Youth League last season, Lyons
beat City 4-1 away and 2-0 at home,
when Eric García was in the City
back line, condemning Paul Harsley’s
side to an early exit from the groupThe French club must
win the Champions
League if they are to play
in Europe next season,
Paul Joyce reports
Dembélé, the ex-Celtic and Fulham
forward, could leave after this seasonWhy new boys Leipzig are so unpopular
It sounds like a fairytale and in some
ways it is. A mere 11 years after the club’s
formation RB Leipzig reached the
Champions League semi-finals on
Thursday becoming the 75th different
team to reach the last four. Seven years
ago they were in the German fourth
division. Four years ago they were in
the second tier. Now they are one win
against Paris Saint-Germain away from
the biggest match in club football.
But to some, Leipzig’s rise is a tale of
corporate malignity rather than sport-
ing romance. The club were founded by
the energy-drink conglomerate Red
Bull, who were looking to invest in a
German football team. Historic clubs
such as St Pauli and Fortuna Düsseldorf
were considered, but those plans wereshelved amid hostile fan protests.
Instead, Red Bull turned their attention
to SSV Markranstädt, a tiny fifth-tier
club in the former East Germany.
Red Bull acquired Markranstädt’s
playing licence and rebranded as
RB Leipzig. The German FA would not
allow the company’s name to be used,
so the club was given the prefix Rasen-
Ballsport, meaning “lawn ball sport”,
which mirrors the initials of the brand.
It is a little tacky, but what makes RB
Leipzig so much more hated than, say,
Chelsea or Manchester City? Most of
the ire is to do with the fact that they
have circumvented German football’s
50+1 ownership rule, which stipulates
that clubs must be majority owned by
their members: in other words, the fans.
Leipzig got around this by having only
17 members — most of them linked to
Red Bull. There is a concern that theyundermine the structures that give
German football its unique sense of
community — the magazine 11 Freunde
has announced that it will not cover
Leipzig’s semi-final on principle.
That does not mean there is nothing
to admire about Leipzig. The club invest
in young players. They play an attract-
ive, innovative brand of football. Then
there is their most remarkable asset,
Julian Nagelsmann, the 33-year-old
manager. He joined Hoffenheim aged
28 and led them from the relegation
zone to the Champions League before
taking over at Leipzig last summer.
He turned down an offer from Real
Madrid in 2018, choosing to stay in the
Bundesliga — for now. He may be on
the brink of the ultimate vindication,
but if Leipzig do win the Champions
League, do not expect their success to
be greeted with rapture in Germany.James Gheerbrantrule Europe
Guardiola confirmed that Sergio
Agüero will miss the game to stay in
Barcelona and continue his rehab after
a knee operation and cited another club
legend as an example of the attitude
needed. David Silva, entering his final
week as a City player, “absolutely is
ready,” Guardiola enthused. “The way
he has trained and the mentality in
training – I am really impressed about
his personality.”
All the squad are “incredibly fo-
cused,” Guardiola said. “We have been
treated well by the hotel and the people
in Cascais (where City are based, 20
miles from Lisbon). We have eaten well,
we have drank good wine at night —
and we have worked a lot.
“We have looked at Lyons and tried
to discover their secrets and now it is
the time to be ourselves.
“I want to see my team show who
they are. I want them to do everything
they always try to do from in their soul
and in their minds. After that, the
football will dictate whether we deserve
it or not. It’s as simple as that.”
Be your true self. Show your soul:
Guardiola does not sound like a man
ready to overthink the approach this
time. That Chelsea side who caused
him so much pain eight years ago went
on to become the only first-time win-
ners of the Champions League since
1997 but with Real, Liverpool and
Juventus out, this is the best chance of
there being a new name on the trophy.
The closing stages being played as
one-off games in neutral venues adds to
the feeling of novelty. What better cir-
cumstances for Guardiola and City to
turn over a new leaf? “The hotel is
good, the Portugal FA have allowed us
to train in their facilities and they are
good too. The distances are short: 20-
minutes. Good weather. The guys
spend time together, talking, preparing
the game. That is what we have done,
nothing special, just spend more time
together — the backroom staff as well
as the players. I think it’s good, really
good,” Guardiola said.
“This is an important moment for
our careers, for our lives as profession-
als. So this is once in a lifetime and I
think being together is exceptional. I
prefer to be at home. I don’t like to be in
hotels. But this is a special [situation].”There were times in
matches last season
when Raheem
Sterling attacked
almost from a central
midfield position
rather than staying on
the left wing.
If he plays wide
then that is where I
think he can be most
dangerous. City are
incredibly strong in
these areas, whether
it is Riyad Mahrez or
Bernardo Silva on the
opposite flank.
Lyons are not
particularly
good. Theirform in Ligue 1 was
average and I saw
Kylian Mbappé score
a hat-trick for Paris
Saint-Germain against
them in the French
Cup just
before
lockdown,
though they were
down to ten men.
If Rudi Garcia’s side
play with wing backs
then there will be
space for Sterling to
exploit and use his
pace. If Pep Guardiola
plays his best players
in their best positions,
then City will win.Unleash Sterling down the left
Pep Guardiola is not
guilty of many things
as a manager, but
there are times,
especially in the
Champions League as
opposed to the
Premier League, that
he can almost be too
technical and tactical.
We have seen that
at Barcelona and
Bayern Munich, where
he shuffled things
around and you were
left wondering: ‘Did
you really need to do
that?’
There is no need for
him to be preoccupied
with the results
against Lyons last
season. For a start,Kevin De Bruyne did
not play in either
game and so straight
away that is a huge
transformation in the
respective strengths
of the teams.
Where Tanguy
Ndombele was the
heartbeat of Lyons
with performances
that, in part,
persuaded Tottenham
Hotspur to pay
£55 million for him, so
De Bruyne is the onewho can run the show
this time around.
De Bruyne dictates
the pace of the game,
the passing, the
through-balls and the
chances. I don’t think
Lyons possess a
player who can nullify
him.
The strength of
Guardiola’s City is in
sticking to the
methods he has
ingrained into them
and should they do so
then they can beat
Lyons comfortably.
When he starts
moving players
around, and deviating
from that, they are
not as good.Guardiola must stick to his methods
llol
thtGoals for Sterling in
all comps this season31
Average changes by
Guardiola to City side
for CL knockout tiesMATT MCNULTY/MANCHESTER CITY/GETTY IMAGESif
De Bruyne is the one not asgo