Lyon left to regret missed opportunities
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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Bafétimbi Gomis and Kim Källström admitted Olympique Lyonnais were ultimately made to pay for their first-leg profligacy after their UEFA Champions League ambitions ended at APOEL FC.
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Bafétimbi Gomis and Kim Källström both believed foundations for Olympique Lyonnais's UEFA Champions League elimination at the hands of APOEL FC were laid in the first leg in France.
Rémi Garde's team recorded a 1-0 victory at Stade de Gerland three weeks ago yet their failure to capitalise on several presentable opportunities to increase that lead left them with the narrowest of advantages to take to Cyprus. Gustavo Manduca duly wiped out that advantage nine minutes in at the GSP Stadium and with no further addition to the score, Gomis and Källström both converted from the spot in the shoot-out only for Alexandre Lacazette and Michel Bastos to fail and condemn the French side to an exit.
"We have to take our hats off to APOEL, they've achieved something enormous, but we are left with a lot of regrets," Gomis told UEFA.com. "It goes like that sometimes. We should have got at least one more goal at the Gerland, where we had much more of the ball and the better chances, then we'd have been in a better position tonight."
Despite his disappointment Gomis was full of praise for Lyon's conquerors, adding: "APOEL played well, scored [an early goal] and got the crowd right behind them. I don't think we deserved to lose but we couldn't manage to get the away goal. Now we have to work hard and try to improve our position in the league."
A visibly downcast Källström also believed fortune had not favoured Lyon, adding: "We tried hard and worked all over the pitch but we're in a difficult position at the moment. We're having no luck and it could have gone either way tonight but they were strongest at penalties and you can't say more than that."
With more than 22,000 fervent spectators – a European record at the GSP Stadium – in attendance, Lyon were up against it from the outset, although Källström insisted things might easily have turned out differently. "We were prepared [for the atmosphere] but obviously when they score early that gives them a lot of confidence.
"We had a lot of chances to score too, we showed a lot of courage in difficult periods. In the first game we had a lot of chances; we hoped we wouldn't regret it today but unfortunately that's the case."
