Champions League: Lyon, Bayern Munich Set For Clash Of Heavyweights

Olympique Lyonnais take on Bayern München at the Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon having suffered defeat against the German giants in their only previous Uefa Champions League semifinal.
Bayern stormed into the last four with a remarkable, and record-breaking, 8-2 victory against Barcelona – a result that equalled the biggest aggregate victory in a Uefa Champions League quarterfinal.
Lyon, meanwhile, sprang a surprise against Manchester City in the last quarterfinal, Moussa Dembélé coming off the bench to score twice and secure a 3-1 victory that set up a second Franco-German semifinal in this season’s competition, 24 hours after Leipzig’s tie against Paris Saint-Germain.
Not only did Bayern come out on top in the sides’ semifinal meeting in 2010, they have won every game in this season’s competition and have scored 39 goals in the 2019/20 Uefa Champions League to date – the fourth highest tally in the competition’s history and the best goal-per-game average of all (4.33).
PREVIOUS MEETINGS
All eight of the teams’ past contests came between 2000 and 2010, and all in the Uefa Champions League. Bayern secured an ultimately comfortable win in that semifinal in 2010, Arjen Robben scoring the only goal of the first leg in Munich before an Ivica Olic hat-trick sealed a 3-0 win in Lyon with Thomas Müller providing an assist in that second leg.
In the 2008/09 group stage, they shared a 1-1 draw in Munich before a 3-2 Bayern win at Lyon’s old Stade de Gerland home, Miroslav Klose scoring twice to help secure first place in the section and consign their hosts to second.
It was Lyon first and Bayern second when the teams met in the 2003/04 group stage. Then they drew 1-1 at Gerland – Péguy Luyindula’s 88th-minute equaliser rescuing the hosts – before Lyon won 2-1 in Bavaria through a goal from Bayern old boy Giovane Elber.
The clubs first met in the 2000/01 second group stage, Jens Jeremies scoring the only goal in Munich in November 2000 and Sidney Govou hitting two first-half goals to set up a 3-0 Lyon victory in the return fixture in France on 6 March 2001, but Bayern still advanced and went on to claim the trophy that year while Les Gones, competing in their first Uefa Champions League, were eliminated.
Lyon have never played in the final of a major European competition – their only other semifinals aside from that 2010 defeat by Bayern came in the 1963/64 European Cup Winners’ Cup, which they lost to Sporting CP after a replay in neutral Madrid (0-0 h, 1-1 a, 0-1), and in the 2016/17 Uefa Europa League when they lost to Ajax (1-4 a, 3-1 h).
Four French teams have reached the European Cup final: Reims (1956, 1959), St-Étienne (1976), Marseille (1991, 1993) and Monaco (2004). Of those, only Marseille, in the inaugural Uefa Champions League final in 1993, lifted the trophy.
Eight Ligue 1 clubs have reached the European Cup semifinals; Lyon are the sixth team to make more than one appearance, after Reims, St-Étienne, Marseille, Monaco and fellow 2019/20 semifinalists Paris.
The success of Paris and Lyon this season means France has two teams in the European Cup semifinals for the first time.
This season, Lyon squeezed into the last 16 as Group G runners-up having picked up eight points from their six games, one more than both Benfica and Zenit. Away from home, OL won 2-0 at eventual section winners Leipzig before losing at Benfica (1-2) and Zenit (0-2). They were 1-0 winners at home to Juventus in the round of 16 second leg and went through on away goals after losing 2-1 in Turin before beating City in the last eight thanks to Dembélé’s late double after Maxwel Cornet’s opener had been cancelled out.
The first leg against Juventus was Lyon’s first win in the Uefa Champions League knockout rounds since a 1-0 firstleg victory against Apoel in February 2012; Les Gones went on to lose that last-16 tie on penalties and before this season had not progressed beyond that stage since reaching the last four in 2009/10.
The defeat at Juve was only Lyon’s fifth loss in their last 21 European matches (W8 D8). It is five defeats in 14 away matches (W6 D3), with the win against City ending a three-match losing streak away from their own stadium.
When Lyon’s Rayan Cherki came on as a substitute at Zenit on Matchday 5, he became, at 16 years 102 days, the second youngest player to appear in the Uefa Champions League – after Celestine Babayaro, who was aged 16 years 87 days when he played for Anderlecht against Olympiacos in November 1994.
This is Lyon’s 16th Uefa Champions League campaign – four more than any other French club – and fourth in five seasons.
This season’s results against Leipzig mean OL have lost only one of their six games against Bundesliga clubs since that semifinal defeat by Bayern in 2010 (W2 D3).
OL have won eight of their last 17 matches against German opposition (D5 L4), the 2-0 success at Leipzig on Matchday 1 in 2019/20 ending a four-game winless run in those games outside France (D2 L2).
That 2010 defeat by Bayern made Lyon’s knockout record in ties against German clubs W2 L4. The most recent success came against Werder Bremen in the only other Uefa Champions League fixtures, in the 2004/05 round of 16 (3-0 a, 7-2 h).
Les Gones have now played two games in Lisbon this season, firstly going down 2-1 at Benfica on Matchday 3. The quarterfinal defeat of City was their first win in the city in their fourth fixture (D1 L2), the draw coming against Sporting CP at the old Estádio José Alvalade in the 1963/64 European Cup Winners’ Cup semifinal second leg. Lyon have
now won three of their eight Uefa fixtures in Portugal (D1 L4), the first seven of those games against local sides.
Bayern are appearing in the Uefa Champions League semifinals for the 12th time, moving level with Barcelona and behind only Real Madrid (13).
Bayern have lost their last four semifinals, having won the previous four.
Leipzig’s qualification for the semifinals alongside Bayern means Germany has two teams in the last four of the Uefa Champions League for only the second time. On the other occasion, in 2012/13, Bayern and Dortmund went on to contest the final.
Bayern became only the seventh team – and first from Germany – to win all six games in the Uefa Champions League group stage this season, recording big wins at Tottenham (7-2) – a game in which Serge Gnabry scored four goals – and Crvena zvezda (6-0).
Bayern were the only side to collect maximum points in this season’s group stage, and finished as top scorers with 24 goals – one short of Paris Saint-Germain’s competition record, set in 2017/18.
The German champions eased through in the round of 16 with an emphatic victory against Chelsea, winning 3-0 in London and 4-1 in Munich.
Even better was to follow in the one-off quarterfinal as Bayern became the first team to score eight goals in a Uefa Champions League knockout game, Thomas Müller and Philippe Coutinho – on loan from Barcelona – both getting two in a remarkable 8-2 success against Barça. Bayern’s four goals in the first 31 minutes was the fastest a team has ever scored four in a Uefa Champions League knockout match, beating their own competition record of 36 minutes set against Porto in the 2014/15 quarterfinal second leg.
That was the first time Bayern had scored eight goals in a Uefa Champions League match; they have hit seven five times.
With 39 goals this term, Bayern have set a new club record for a Uefa Champions League campaign, surpassing the mark of 33 set in 2014/15. The all-time record for a single campaign is the 45 scored by Barcelona in 1999/2000 –though they played 16 matches in the competition that season. (SuperSport)