Lyon Wins Again, This Time in Final Minutes: 2-1

Lyon took on St. Etienne in a so-called "derby" match, between neighbors in the Rhone-Alpes region, and towards the end (when I left) it looked as if the match was headed for a tie. With less than ten minutes left to go, a St. Etienne defender fouled a Lyon player and was sent off with a red card, giving Olympique Lyonnais (OL) a penalty kick. But the captain Juninho missed the kick and the game seemed to be headed for a tie. I left early so as not to be crushed by the crowd and missed the game-winning goal several minutes later, in the final minutes of the game.

Passions were running high in today's game. I was sitting in the Lyon side, along with several thousand other fans, but maybe a few hundred brave St. Etienne fans sat on the opposite end in one corner of the Virage Sud (South end zone). Between them and the OL fans stood a phalanx of security personnel. Even with them there there was always the threat of some violence; in fact, out of frustration at Juninho's missed penalty, one fan threw a lit flare into the St. Etienne stands. This is not child's play: with such firewords, somebody could easily get burnt. Security personnel were kept busy extinguishing flares lit and thrown at the field by the rowdy OL fans.

So much for the notion of "polite" French here: fans were cursing the referee, whistling and booing the St. Etienne players each time they threatened to score. It was quite a tense match and I'm glad that in the end OL won.

The rivalry was much more palpable than that between the teams playing in the World Cup. After all, in the world cup, many of the players playing for the national teams know each other from the European leagues and so after the matches it was not unusual for them to hug and exchange jerseys after the match. No such politesses here.

The photo here was taken after OL broke open the scoring in the second half. More than during the other matches, fans were waving their flags to support the team.

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LINK:

English page of the OL team is here
http://www.olweb.fr/index.php?pid=0&lng=en

Results of this match are posted on the page.
The link (as of today, 15 Oct 2006) is
http://www.olweb.fr/index.php?lng=en&m=707&pid=105001