Décines-Charpieu (France) (AFP)

After a failed and lost first match 2-0 against Glasgow Rangers on Thursday for the first day of the Tournament in Lyon, Olympique Lyonnais, with a scorer Memphis, won 2-1 on Saturday against Celtic displaying a conquering attitude and consistent likely to bring more confidence to two weeks to face PSG in the final of the League Cup.

Until then, the Rhone club has yet to play two final friendly matches.

It will be in Belgium, in Ghent against La Gantoise, and Antwerp against Antwerp, on July 22 and 24 to perfect their condition and have the necessary level in order to bend the Parisian ogre which will, in turn disputed the final of the Coupe de France in front of Saint-Etienne, on July 24.

He will then stay with the Lyonnais for a week to try to win his qualification for the Final 8 of the Champions League against Juventus Turin, on August 7 in Turin after winning the 8th final (1-0), on February 26 In Lyon.

Unlike the match against the Rangers, OL lined up against Celtic, a team that can be described as "type".

And the contrast is striking but not surprising.

It shows once again that the Lyonnais workforce lacks depth in terms of the quality of its players.

There are incumbents, on the one hand, and extra players, at best, or alternates. And the whole lacks leaders, a finding often emphasized by sports director Juninho since his return to the club a year ago.

Rudi Garcia, who can therefore really count on a dozen good players, was confirmed again on Thursday.

Saturday, he abandoned 4-2-3-1 to successfully adopt a device in 3-5-2 with Marcelo, Jason Denayer and Fernando Marçal in central defense, Léo Dubois and Maxwel Cornet as lateral backs, Bruno Guimaraes , Thiago Mendes, Houssem Aouar in the middle.

- Dembélé and Memphis goal scorers -

In attack, Moussa Dembele and Memphis Depay were associated. They are the ones who allowed OL to lead 2-0 at halftime.

Dembélé took over from the header at the far post a center delivered from the left wing by Marcelo to open the scoring in the 4th minute while Depay cleverly deviated from a Madjer tailgating pass from Dubois shortly before half-time (40 ).

The Dutchman, who also found the crossbar (54), had already scored four times at Evian on July 1 against the Swiss amateur team from Port-Valais (12-0).

However, apart from his goal, the former Manchester United player, seriously injured in a knee on December 15 against Rennes, seemed sometimes at a loss of pace despite his efforts.

While the two official matches that are looming against PSG and Juve could determine his future at OL where he has only one year of contract, it seems preferable for him that he plays in the immediate peak rather than in the heart of the game.

But overall, Olympique Lyonnais displayed good cohesion with a compact team block and consistency between each line while Rudi Garcia advocated stability by making only two changes at the end of the game, Marçal and Cornet leaving their place to Kenny Tete and Youssouf Koné.

At the end of the game, Lyon could have spared themselves from conceding a goal signed Mohamed El Younoussi who took the best of Marcelo (87).

© 2020 AFP