Olympique Lyonnais General Manager Claude Puel Lauds ‘Courageous’ Performance Against Liverpool

Wednesday evening saw Olympique Lyonnais secure a top-two berth in Champions League Group E by drawing 1-1 at home against Liverpool, and general manager Claude Puel seemed to acknowledge that his side had something of a luck escape.

Les Gones never really hit their stride during the match, perhaps disrupted by a couple of enforced first half changes, but they reached the interval with a blank scoreline. When Ryan Babel finally gave the Reds a deserved lead inside the last ten minutes, it looked like OL’s champagne would have to be put on ice until late November, but Lisandro Lopez scored a dramatic late leveller, which pushed his side through.

“We’ve had the art of writing great individual scenarios since the start of the season,” Puel smiled after the match.

“It was a tough game for us, yet we were well in it. However, we were lucky that [goalkeeper] Hugo [Lloris] kept us in the game.

“After half-time we had better control, but paradoxically that was when we lost the goal. We were very courageous until the end to qualify for tonight.”

Lyon travel to Florence for their next match, where they will tackle Fiorentina. Victory in that game would not only keep Liverpool in the hunt, it would also secure les Gones’ place as group winners - a title not without its own reward, as OL found last season, when they were immediately paired with Barcelona after finishing as runners up in the pool stage to Bayern Munich.