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Lyon capped off four remarkable nights of UEFA Champion League football behind closed doors in Lisbon by producing yet another remarkable result. Rudi Garcia’s side prevailed against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in an exhilarating quarter-final tie.
A late brace from substitute Moussa Dembele completed a 3-1 win for Les Gones, who had gone ahead in the first half thanks to Maxwel Cornet only to be pegged back by Kevin De Bruyne.
Although the English side were odds-on favourites to progress from this tie, the Frenchmen could draw inspiration from beating their opponents in the Champions League group stages last season. And they caused flashbacks to that victory in France in the 24th minute. Cornet, who had scored for Lyon that night, opened the scoring with a superb low finish past Ederson at his near post from outside the box.
Manchester City struggled throughout against Lyon’s determined and disciplined 3-5-2 setup, with the Cityzens getting increasingly frustrated as the game wore on. However, their efforts bore fruit in the 69th minute when De Bruyne calmly tucked away Raheem Sterling’s cut-back to restore parity.
Many would have expected City to push on and find the winner after getting the leveler. But instead, it was Lyon that struck the next blow. Moussa Dembele, who had replaced Memphis Depay just minutes earlier, found himself clean through on goal after Houssem Aouar’s pass reached him unexpectedly.
The French striker made no mistake, finishing past Ederson despite a touch from the keeper to put his side back in front.
All was not lost for City at that stage and they had a golden opportunity to get back into the tie. However, as Gabriel Jesus’ cross across the face of the goal reached Raheem Sterling at the far post, the Englishman somehow contrived to send his finish flying over the crossbar instead of into the waiting empty net.
Barely a minute after Sterling missed that sitter, Lyon went up the other end to score again, with Dembele bagging his second. Once again, it was Aouar who set up the striker. Aouar's shot was allowed to bobble out of Ederson's grasp only for Dembele to swoop in and put the game out of reach.
That was the final piece of major action from the tie, with Manchester City bowing out at the quarter-final stage of the Champions League yet again. Lyon, meanwhile, who finished seventh in the curtailed Ligue 1 season, need to win the tournament in order to feature in Europe next season and took a huge step towards making that happen with a memorable win tonight.
Here are the major talking points from yet another unexpected result from the 2019-20 Champions League knockout rounds.
#1 Rudi Garcia Produces A Tactical Masterclass
Garcia and Lyon got their tactics spot on against their much-fancied opponents, from the three-at-the-back formation and playing on the counter-attack to the late substitutions.
The three defenders, paired up with a young and energetic midfield, blunted the formidable City attack significantly, while the decision to bring Moussa Dembele on in place of captain Memphis Depay after being pegged back to 1-1 proved to be crucial in sealing the win. Having withstood considerable City pressure and chosen just the right moments to attack, Garcia and Lyon deserve a lot of credit for the win.
In the other dugout, Guardiola had proven himself to be no stranger to major tactical reshuffles ahead of a big game in the past, albeit with some proving more successful than others. Unfortunately, his decision to go for a defensive-minded midfield three of Fernandinho, Rodri, and Ilkay Gundogan instead of playing Phil Foden proved costly as his side struggled to create in an attacking sense.
#2 Ake’s Arrival A Season Too Late For City
There has been a lot of discussion about Manchester City’s failure to replace the outgoing Vincent Kompany with a quality centre-back at the start of the season. The spotlight shone even brighter on this decision when Aymeric Laporte was ruled out for a large part of the season with a serious injury, with Guardiola having to resort to playing Fernandinho in central defence to make up for the absence of a ball-playing centre-back.
Despite having the option to go for the more experienced Nicolas Otamendi or John Stones, Pep has chosen instead to show faith in the young Eric Garcia in recent games. However, the young Spaniard has struggled at times to cope with the physicality at the highest level of football despite being paired up alongside Laporte, which has thus exposed City’s frailties at the back numerous times throughout the season.
Although the arrival of Nathan Ake from Bournemouth will go some way to fixing that issue, the absence of another top-tier central defender in the City backline, paired with Guardiola’s apparent lack of faith in Stones and Otamendi, has cost City dearly.
#3 Maxwel Cornet, The Scourge Of Manchester City Yet Again
If Cornet were to choose a team that he could play every week, it would surely be Manchester City, because he can’t stop scoring against them! The Ivorian scored against the Cityzens at the Etihad in the group stage of last season’s Champions League, following that up with a brace when City visited France.
Such is Cornet’s preference for playing against City that he has failed to net again since those group stage encounters until tonight when he came up against his favourite opponents yet again. He opened the scoring with an excellent finish under pressure, bending the ball around Ederson from an acute angle and was excellent in his work rate up and down Lyon’s left flank, making some telling defensive contributions as well.
#4 One-Legged Knockout Stages Producing Some Memorable Results
Although tonight’s result might not have been as resounding as Bayern Munich's 8-2 humbling of Barcelona last night, Lyon dumping Manchester City out of the Champions League will still send shockwaves reverberating around the footballing community. With RB Leipzig also overcoming Atletico Madrid late on to book their place in the semi-final stage, one-legged knockout games in the latter stages of the Champions League has thrown up some truly enthralling ties.
Were the two-legged system still in place, one could reasonably argue that three of the four quarter-final results this season could still have been overturned in the second leg.
Looking back, should the one-legged system have been implemented last season, we would never have seen Liverpool’s memorable comeback at Anfield against Barcelona. As such, playing out the remainder of this season’s Champions League in the style of a major summer tournament has made for an absolutely riveting watch thus far.
#5 An Advantage For Teams Whose Seasons Finished Earlier?
With Lyon’s famous win over Manchester City in the final quarter-final, the semi-final line-up of the 2019-20 Champions League makes for unexpected reading. Both semi-final ties will be Franco-German affairs, with Lyon taking on German champions Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig facing Ligue 1 winners PSG.
With Ligue 1 having been called off a few months ago and the Bundesliga wrapping up over a month before the Champions League resumed, there were some doubts over the form in which French and German teams would come back.
As it turns out, the teams that have enjoyed a longer layoff and prepared for the knockout tournament in Portugal with a couple of friendlies have fared much better than their counterparts who signed off on their respective leagues barely a week prior to the start of the Champions League.
