On May 21, OL returned to the roof of Europe by winning their eighth Champions League since 2011, at Juventus Stadium in Turin. Five months later, the Lyonnaises will be back in the Turin enclosure (October 27), but this time to avoid almost definitively compromising their chances of qualifying for the quarter-finals of this C1. Because on Wednesday evening at Parc OL, Sonia Bompastor’s players sank like never before in their European history, losing (1-5) to Arsenal in their first group match. How could such a debacle hit the European reference in women’s football, which had conceded less than five goals in all of its 10 of its 15 Champions League campaigns so far?
An endless black series of injuries
Half of the team that tamed FC Barcelona (3-1) in the last C1 final was out Wednesday evening. All injured, and for a long time, Ellie Carpenter, Griedge Mbock, Catarina Macario, Delphine Cascarino and Ada Hegerberg are indisputable starters in this group. We can add to the list the flagship recruit of the summer, the German midfielder from PSG Sara Däbritz, already seriously injured in the ankle and hoped for February 2023. As well as Dzsenifer Marozsán and Amel Majri, in recovery after ligament ruptures crossed at the knee.
“We are inevitably impacted by the number of injuries, noted Sonia Bompastor, Wednesday evening on OL Play. They concern a lot of executive players. In the Champions League, experience and talent are essential. There, we have a group rejuvenated by this context. In fact, the only real surprise guests of the rout against Arsenal are defender Alice Sombath (19) and rookie Inès Jaurena (ex-midfielder of the Girondins de Bordeaux), 31 years old but inexperienced at European level.
An insufficient transfer window
The galley experienced on Wednesday by Ines Jaurena, in a position that is not his at all (right side), before his exit in the 37th minute of play, symbolizes OL’s insufficient summer transfer window. Australian Ellie Carpenter, out until the end of 2022, has no real replacement in the Lyon workforce. And this even less since the injury of Griedge Mbock with the France team last month, which pushed the recruitment cell to activate to sign an essential defensive reinforcement.
Canadian international Vanessa Gilles has arrived on loan from Angel City (NWSL)… but she was injured as soon as she signed, and will not be able to play for a few more weeks. For a club as attractive as OL, the absence of reliable reinforcements therefore calls into question in this area of play, where the departure of Kadeisha Buchanan (Chelsea) was clearly felt during the open house operation against the Gunners.
Internationals in bad shape after the Euro
In fifteen years at the highest level, Wendie Renard had almost never been as feverish as Wednesday evening. At the origin of Beth Mead’s victorious free kick (1-3, 45th+1), and clearly responsible for Caitlin Foord’s fourth goal (1-4, 67th), the Lyon captain assumed in the face of the microphones: “We have to take his responsibilities. I have no problem taking the loss for myself. “His individual poor form, like the inside performances of Selma Bacha, Melvine Malard, Danielle van de Donk and Janice Cayman, all present at the Euro in July, suggests a summer that has been difficult to manage, after a season already rich in emotions with the double D1-C1. Wendie Renard did not evade the subject.
“We didn’t really have any physical preparation. We left the Euros, we had very few vacation days and we went straight to matches. So it was complicated to have a real preparation. We do with the means at hand. We like to play, to chain matches, me first, but if we don’t work the cash register, at some point, we can be annoyed. But before thinking about the physical, we can do much better in the quality of the game, in the technical errors, in our choices. And then a lot of Arsenal players went on too. »
A rout that will leave its mark?
Even when we have a history as brilliant as OL in the competition, can we recover from such a catastrophic start in the Champions League? “We had imagined different beginnings, recalls Janice Cayman on OL Play. It’s hard, you have to question yourself before facing Juve. We know we will bounce back. “His coach Sonia Bompastor unsurprisingly wanted to move forward too, recalling that “there are five games left to seek qualification”, in a group which also saw Juventus Turin win unsurprisingly in Zürich (0-2).
“The mental aspect will be very important, it will take a reaction of pride, insists Sonia Bompastor. It was an evening without but we must not question everything tonight, even if we have a little head in the bucket. We have to leave by restoring confidence to this whole group which has quality. So we shouldn’t be alarmists. ” Wendie Renard, who evokes “an evening to forget”, concludes by refuting this idea of the end of the reign that this slap suggests: “It’s only a football match. Nothing can call into question everything we have done. It’s true that we’re not used to seeing OL lose like this. It sucks…, but we have to raise our heads”. We can’t wait to discover the reaction of the eight-time European champions, stung like never before.