At OL Park,
In its catastrophic first quarter of the season, Olympique Lyonnais had not yet really had the pleasure of suffering unfavorable and decisive refereeing decisions. It’s been done since Sunday and this sixth defeat in nine days of Ligue 1 against Clermont (1-2). The new bottom of the championship certainly got through the start of the match, but Willy Delajod, and especially Jérôme Brisard and Yohann Rouinsard (the evening video referees) did not help him. In the 10th minute of play, on a long kick, Mory Diaw (excellent in this area) targets his attacker Shamar Nicholson. He avoids the touchline, 35 meters from Anthony Lopes’ goal, in a rather suspicious manner, with his two arms sticking out and very tight at the time of his “chest control”.
Then he had fun for thirteen seconds against Dejan Lovren before delivering a caviar to Muhammed Cham (0-1). Very pumped up and confident, Alexandre Lacazette and Anthony Lopes threw themselves at the match referee, the Lyon goalkeeper even miming an arm check in front of Willy Delajod. However, after 2’30” of viewing, the evening VAR referents validated the goal. “We clearly saw that the Lyon players were frustrated, which is legitimate when we imagine that there is a hand,” says Clermont Foot captain Florent Ogier. But with the number of videos there are and given the time it took, there is no doubt about the final decision of the referees. »
“Do I really need to talk about the first goal? »
Uuuuuuh, we won’t go that far, but let’s remember that the Auvergne defender has not yet reviewed the images when he enters the mixed zone. Hotly, from the first slow motion, former OM midfielder Benoît Cheyrou, current consultant on Prime Video, comments on the action as follows: “He uses his arms to slow down the ball, that’s indisputable “. Lucid, Maxime Gonalons concedes for his part: “From a distance, we have the impression that he is bringing it a little…”. The ex-Lyon captain does not finish his sentence but he shows an arm to the journalists. Unsurprisingly, Anthony Lopes is more explicit.
Do I really need to talk about the first goal? I find it quite incredible that we can do chest control on a ball coming from behind. That’s how it is, there are a lot of referees today to make decisions and they validated this goal. This fact of play clearly did not help us. »
Even John Textor slips a tackle to the referees
This questionable opening score in fact precipitated this widespread doubt on the OL side, exacerbated by Yohann Magnin’s superb second goal (0-2, 35th). While remaining measured, unlike his fiery assistant Rémy Vercoutre (warned immediately), Fabio Grosso is clearly on the same line as his goalkeeper: “For me there is a hand there, otherwise the ball goes in front and it does not stay in the player’s feet. There is then a penalty because the defender moves his arm to remove the ball.”
The Italian coach, who has only taken one point out of twelve possible since his arrival on the bench, refers to the other controversial action of the first half. In the 44th, on a nice deep opening from Maxence Caqueret for Henrique, delivered with a touch of the head by the Brazilian, Alexandre Lacazette is beaten by Maximiliano Caufriez. Except that the Clermont defender intervenes with his left hand, before warding off the danger as best he can during this big highlight in Lyon. A situation that pushed owner John Textor himself to a strong tackle in front of the media: “The players must do better, and I think the referees must also do better”. So there remains a bit of the JMA spirit in this OL in crisis.