The Rouge et Noir provided Lille with a stick to beat them with. Heavily beaten, the Aiglons were punished on the counter on three occasions. A tough evening, made worse by an injury to Atal and the late dismissal of Lees-Melou.

The features of the game 

Suffocated. The Rouge et Noir, who were playing in white, didn’t have even one second’s respite at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy. There was to be no sizing up period against a LOSC side who attacked the match with their foot firmly on the accelerator. Under tremendous pressure, the Aiglons lost ball after ball, like for Leão’s opener when Atal was stopped by Koné 80m from his goal, leaving acres in behind him for Ikoné. The same cause and same result for the second goal, when Sarr lost the ball on the other side of the pitch, and a sprint from another member of the famous Lille offensive trio "BIP-BIP", Nicolas Pepe, who couldn’t have done better with his perfectly curled left-footed effort that found the back of Benitez’s net. LOSC’s top scorer had already shown his talent just before, with some excellent work in the box that ended with a powerful strike crashing against the bar (14').

After the break, the Gym were more consistent, with more aggression at the breakdown, but still lacked power up-front. They had to wait until the hour mark to see their first effort on target, falling to Danilo. The second was an excellent acrobatic effort from Ganago (75') after a Burner cross, but Maignan pushed away. Twenty seconds later Bamba put the game to bed with a third goal, and a third on the counter. To make things worse, Pierre Lees-Melou would be extremely harshly sent off in the final moments of the game, after his foot landed on Araujo’s leg, whom he hadn’t seen coming…

The coach’s choices

Like against Monaco, the Gym began the game in a 3-5-2, with the attacking duo of Saint-Maximin and Ganago. Under the cosh from the get go, the Aiglons were punished by the supersonic speed of the Lille attack, which forced Patrick Vieira to quickly revisit his tactics, moving into a 4-3-3 in the 18th minute. On the right wing of this set-up, Youcef Atal was forced off after 30 minutes, after suffering a hamstring strain after one of his famous sprints. But with too much waste in the build-up, the Niçois were unable to take control in the first half and didn’t trouble the home side’s defence. 

The goals 

7' Blocked 70m from his goal, Atal saw Ikoné break down the left wing and cross firmly for Leão. Malang Sarr was unable to turn away the cross and saw the Portuguese forward finish past Walter Benitez to open the scoring.

37' Played in down the right, Pépé squared up Dante and curled beautifully with his left into the corner of Benitez’s goal.

75' A Lille counter. On the right, Pépé moved forward and found Bamba on the other wing. He made no mistake and beat Benitez to score Lille’s 3rd goal.

90'+4 The ex-Niçois had their time to shine, with a cross in from the left from Jérémy Pied onto the head of Loïc Rémy who capped off a good evening for the home side.

A.D.

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