Lyon vs CSKA Moscow PREVIEW & PREDICTION 15/03/2018

LYON VS CSKA MOSCOW PREVIEW & PREDICTION

On Thursday, starting at 20:05, the Lyon – CSKA Moscow match will be played out of the finals of the UEFA Europa League final. Although the French have managed to win the tour, the qualification is still playing.

Jo, 20:05: Lyon – CSKA Moscow

Although Lyon has managed to win the tour, for them things are much more complicated than they seem. First of all, the minimum 1-0 advantage does not give them too much security to qualify. Secondly, Saturday follows the Marseille derby, “6 point match” in the podium fight and why not for the second place, even if Monaco has a little advantage so far with OM. Another fact that is not normal for a Lyon team is that they have not scored twice in the same game in the last 6 matches of all competitions. In terms of injury, OL is good and bad at the same time. The only player who can not play for the French is Nabir Fekir, the “talisman” of the team. He was absent in the tour as in the last championship and cup matches so he may not impress Lyon anymore. Thus, we expect to see Bruno Génésio aligning a first 11 very similar to last week, especially because Marcelo, the marker of the only goal in the tour, managed to avoid receiving a yellow card and will be able to activate again in defense of OL.

On the other side, CSKA Moscow managed to score a decent performance in the tour, as we expected, and only the misfortune made the table not show a 1-1 at the end of the 90 minutes. Chalov’s defeat in the 89th minute was decisive. In the match with Akhmat Grozny in the championship, they made a clear 3-0 and seem to be ready to attack the qualification with real chances to get it on the Olympics Lyonnais on Thursday. As absences, they are exactly the same as in the tournament, with only Vasin and Fernandes being injured, but Berezutski will be back on the pitch because his suspension for the cumulative yellow has expired. We should see him again in attacking Wernbloom even if he did not shine too much in Moscow. We think that although Lyon has completed the remarkable series of consecutive no-goal matches for the Russians, this will not change the fate of the hostilities and so we will see again a relatively closed game.

Probable teams:

Lyon: Lopes – Tete, Marcelo, Morel, Marcal – NDombele, Tousart, Aouar-Traore, Mariano, Depay.

CSKA Moscow: Akinfeev – Berezutski, Berezutski, Ignashevich – Kuchaev, Dzagoev, Natcho, Golovin, Milanov – Musa, Wernbloom.

Finally, we consider this game to be less spectacular, in which it does not seem possible to see too many successes. The Russians will try to play safely, but most likely they will do it by pressing and through a construction game that will lead to the goal a little harder.


PREDICTION: Both teams to score / NO @ 1.75

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