League Match- Liverpool 2-2 Lyon; Liverpool were held at Anfield today by French Champions Olympic Lyonnais. As expected, it was an exhilarating match between the rivals from last year’s championship match.
Fernando Torres opened the scoring with a brilliant shot that rocketed past young Hugo Lloris in just the 11th minute.
Liverpool manager Dave Yeomans knew that his squad would need more goals to hold a renowned Lyon attack.
The first half ended at 1-0 to the home squad’s advantage. At the half, Sidney Govou replaced Lyon winger Ludovic Giuly in an attempt to beef up the non existent attack.
In the 60th minute Karim Benzema netted a goal after a through ball from Govou led to a breakaway.
Lyon managed to rack up another 8 shots on target over the next 20 minutes, but it was Liverpool who took the lead. The Anfield crowd roared when Bellamy struck a goal after Torres cruised in and out the weak Lyon defence and neatly placed it on Bellamy’s foot.
Just as it seemed all hope was lost, a through ball from Juan Roman Riquelme put Lionel Messi 5 yards ahead of the defenders. The 4’8″ Argentinian prodigy was only good enough to beat Reina, but not the post. Karim Benzema was there to score the equalizer wtih a swing of his right boot off the rebound.
The match would seemingly slow down and come to an end, but the last 3 minutes were the most exhilarating. Another through bal from Govou to Karim Benzema led to a break away in the 91st minute, but this time the prodigal goalscorer was slide tackled at the 19 after launching a shot that was stopped by Reina.
Phillip Lahm was shown a red card, and Juan Roman Riquelme lined up to take the free kick. The layoff man passed it over to Messi, but the Liverpool defence was to good. After two blocked attempts the ball was cleared, and the game ended in a draw.
