For Olympique Lyonnais, the new French football season starts on Friday evening with a home game against Dijon. Can the Champions League semi-finalist achieve more success in Ligue 1 this season?
Lyon:
The French Ligue 1 was shut down early due to the corona crisis, but it has nevertheless been a long season for Olympique Lyonnais. At the end of last month, Rudi Garcia’s team played the final of the Coupe de la Ligue, which was lost against Paris Saint-Germain after penalties. In addition, les Gones reached the semi-finals of the Champions League earlier this month, in which the eventual winner Bayern Munich turned out to be a size too big.
Olympique Lyonnais certainly did not leave a bad impression in the last matches and is on paper the big favorite against Dijon. Garcia has players who, except for defender Youssouf Koné, all seem to be fit and did not see any supporting players leave. Amine Gouiri, Martin Terrier and Oumar Solet, who mainly watched from the bench last season, all left for a total of more than 23 million and for half that amount, striker Karl Toko Ekambi was definitively taken over from Villareal. Other major transfers have so far failed to materialize, but until the end of the transfer market, Garcia will still have to fear a departure from Memphis Depay. The Dutch star player of les Gones would be on the radar of FC Barcelona, where he would meet his former national coach Ronald Koeman.
Dijon:
In the first round of the new season, Dijon lost 1-0 at home against Angers last Saturday. Aided by the absence of Mama Baldé and Julio Tavares, last season the two club top scorers of Dijon in the Ligue 1 with eleven goals together, acquisition Aurelien Scheidler took the lead from an offensive point of view, but as yet without tangible success. The debutant scored twice for les Moutards on his debut in the Ligue 1, but both of his hits were rejected due to offside.
Despite the 1-0 defeat in the opening game of the season, there are plenty of positive leads for Stéphane Jobard’s team. From an offensive point of view, there seems to be enough quality in the front on paper in the form of Baldé, Scheidler and Tavares, among others, and also from a defensive point of view, les Moutards did not do badly by taking only one goal against. Last season, the team from the mustard city took an average of 1.32 goals per game, but that was offset by an average of 0.96 goals scored.
PREDICTION: Lyon to win @ 1,32
