Matchday 12: Boring Draws, Nice Wins, And a Whole Lotta Bad Luck

By: Sam | October 28th, 2007

So there it is. Olympique Lyonnais are now more than one win’s worth of points in front of their closest competitor. Can they be caught?

Nancy and Rennes are now four points behind them after Lyon’s 3-2 win over PSG at the Parc. Hatem Ben Arfa scored a pair of goals, nice ones too, before Pauleta just barely pulled one back. Sidney Govou scored for Lyon near the end, and Pauleta got a brace as consolation.

This is Lyon’s fourth straight win, and they had to fight for it. Anderson was sent off for a last-defender tackle on Diané early in the second half. If it weren’t for PSG’s trouble at finishing, it could have been a draw, at least. Inara at the Lyon Offside will fill you in with frightening detail.

The bad luck I was referring to in the title is for Marseille. Playing Sochaux, a red-zone club before the match, wanting to get their first win streak of the season, the boys in white and blue got off to a great start when Mamadou Niang scored within the first ten minutes. Then, comically, Ronald Zubar and Laurent Bonnart both scored own goals (decent headers, actually, just wrong net) to put Sochaux in front. To top it off, Djibril Cissé missed a penalty (but he shouldn’t have had it anyway, so you be the karma judge). Marseille travel back to the relegation zone, a point behind the happy Sochaux boys. Massaer aka MadSear aka Magnusson aka Slim Shady has the recap at the Marseille Offside.

Rennes, on quite the tear at the moment, took on struggling Lens in the North, and came away victors to stay a solid third, tied with Nancy. Although they conceded a Monterrubio goal to start the second half, Wiltord and Leroy punished Lens’ slack defending and eventually won. Catch the rest of the recap from Shazback at the Rennes Offside.

Let’s not write off Bordeaux just yet. Even though I maintain they are the most boring team in the league, they always do quite well, and this year seems to be no different. Against Valenciennes, who are fading back to where they’re expected to be, they at first went behind on an own goal by Diawara. After, though, Jussie equalized and David Bellion scored just before half time to put les Girondins in front.

Too bad for Nancy though: They could’ve kept Lyon on a two-point leash, but instead failed to deliver an effort against lanterne rouge Metz, and left with a nil-nil draw.

Big score out of Lille as well: The Kluivert effect certainly is ironic, seeing as when the Dutchman got subbed off in the first half, Strasbourg scored three beautiful goals and won 3-0 on the road, humiliating les Dogues.

The table now looks like this:
1 Lyon 28
2 Nancy 24 (+12)
3 Rennes 24 (+8)
4 Bordeaux 22
5 Le Mans 20
6 Strasbourg 19
7 Nice 18 (+3)
8 Saint-Etienne 18 (+3)
9 Valenciennes 18 (0)
10 Toulouse 15
11 Monaco 14 (0)
12 Lorient 14 (-3)
13 Lille 13 (-1)
14 Auxerre 13 (-9)
15 Paris-SG 12 (-4)
16 Caen 12 (-4)
17 Sochaux 11
18 Marseille 10
19 Lens 9
20 Metz 6