Cris gets a header in

Following injuries to Luisão and Fábio Aurélio, Brazil coach Dunga has called up defender Cris from Lyon for the matches against England on Saturday and Oman three days later.

The 32-year-old has appeared 22 times for his country scoring just once. Cris' last game for Brazil was in in the 1-0 vs Russia in March 2006.

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Goals: Lyon (Pjanic 3, Govou 14, Lisandro 80, Lisandro pen 83, Bastos 90); Marseille (Diawara 11, Cheyrou 43, Kone 47, Brandao 79, Toulalan og 92)
Sanctions: Lyon (Makoun 20, Cris 54, Lisandro 86); Marseille (Niang 74, Diawara 87)

No words can adequately describe what will for sure end up being the match of the year.

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(click to enlarge)

For those of you are brave enough to describe the above picture with words, it's caption time!

Bonus points if you can find Lisandro in this picture.

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Despite Liverpool's desperate start to the season John Aldridge still believes manager Rafa Benitez is the right man for the job.
The Reds' hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League are now out of their hands following Lyon's late leveller on Wednesday night. Click to continue reading...

OCTOBER 24, 2009
Stade Municipal Du Ray, Nice
1 PM ET (19:00 CET, 18:00 GMT)
After Tuesday's unbelievable victory at Anfield, we can only hope that the players have come back down to earth- because I'm still on cloud nine- and are ready to dispatch there next league obstacle and maintain their miniscule +1 goal differential lead over second place Montpellier?

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Since so much has been said about yesterday's game, I'm not going to go too much into it. I just wanted to say how proud I am of my team. We've been waiting for this win for a long time. It might just be the group stages, but the biggest criticism of Lyon has been that they've been unable to defeat a big team away from home.

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Reina
Kelly Carragher Agger Insua
Lucas Mascherano
Kuyt Gerrard Benayoun
Ngog
Goals:
Benayoun 41'
Gonalons 72'
Delgado 90+1'
And you thought Saturday was a low. Ha. It got worse. It can always get worse.
In addition to Torres, Johnson, and Riera, it seems Gerrard should have been ruled out as well. Click to continue reading...

October 17, 2009
Stade de Gerland, Lyon
1 PM ET (19:00 CET, 18:00 GMT)

Well, after the short but much needed international break, Lyon head back to office. The break gave us some much needed time for the laundry list of players out due to injury, to continue their convalescences.

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Red Stars hoping to bring back team's scoring leader for 2010
The first day of Women's Professional Soccer's free agency had some pretty big names on the list, including Brazilian forward Cristiane (pictured right) and U.S. Women's National Team midfielder Carli Lloyd (pictured left) from the Chicago Red Stars' 2009 roster. Click to continue reading...

ALLEZ LYONNAIS!!! We can do this!

Lyon:

Lloris
Reveillere - Cris - Toulalan - Cissokho
Pjanic - Makoun - Kallstrom - Bastos
Gomis - Lisandro

Bench: Vercoutre, Ederson, Govou, Clerc, Delgado, Seguin, Gonalons

Fiorentina:

Frey
Comotto - Gamberini - Danielli - Gobbi
Donadel - Montolivo
Marchionni - Mutu - Vargas
Gilardino

Bench: Avramov, Kroldrup, Jovetic, Natali, Jorgensen, Pasqual, Santana

Feel free to post commentary, frustrations, and thoughts here during and after the game.

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Brazilians in action this week:

Kopenhagen – DEN
-José Junior, 33, forward
-Aílton, 24, forward

APOEL – CHI
-Jean Paulista, 31, forward

Timisoara
Eder Bonfim, 28, defender

Arsenal – ENG
-Denílson, 21, midfielder

Stuttgart – GER
-Elson, 27, midfielder
-Cacau, 28, forward

Sporting – POR
-Ronny, 23, sideback
-Anderson Polga, 30, defender
-Pedro Silva, 28, sideback
-Rochemback, 27, midfielder
-Rodrigo Tiuí, 23, forward
-Liedson, 31, forward

Lyon – FRA
-Cris, 32, defender
-Anderson, 29, defender
-Ederson, 21, midfielder

Anderlecht – BEL
-Reynaldo, 19, midfielder
-Kanu, 21, forward

Olimpiakos-GRE
-Leonardo, 24, sideback
-Dudu Cearense, 26, midfielder
-Diogo, 22, forward

Panathinaikos-GRE
-Marcello Mattos, 25, midfielder
-Gilberto Silva, 33, midfielder
-Gabriel, 28, sideback

Levski Sofia-BUL
-Lucio Vagner, 33, sideback
-Joãozinho, 20, midfielder
-Zé Soares, 26, forward

Debrecen-HUN
-Leandro, 27, midfielder
-Dudu, 24, forward
-Galvão, 20, forward

Spotted at Blog do Birner

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Second half goals from strike duo Taison and Alecsandro ensured Internacional three points against Santo André last night, moving the Colorado into second place.
After Palmeiras were unexpectedly held to a 1-1 draw with Botafogo, Inter move within four points of the Brasileirão leaders having played two games less. Click to continue reading...

United kick off their Premier League defence at home to Birmingham tomorrow with a squad not much different from that of last season. Obviously there were a couple of big name departures but the high profile replacements many expected never materialised and with the possible exception of Antonio Valencia, United will field a team of seasoned Reds when they kick off tomorrow.

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July 18, 2009
Stade De L'Escale d'Arnas, Arnas
1:00 PM EST(19:00CET, 18:00GMT)

Today, OL are in Rhône-Alpes to take on RC Lens. Lens is gearing-up for a return to first division football after last year's soujourn in L2 purgatory. It will be the first meeting between the two teams since .

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In one week, I received two new yellow Israeli soccer shirts.

First, my friend Donna from work went to Israel for her sister's wedding. She brought me back a yellow Maccabi Tel Aviv shirt on Monday. Thanks again Donna!

Second, on Thursday I received a new Maccabi Haifa shirt from my Massachusetts family.

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Hotting up.

IN:

Lisandro Lopez: JMA himself was supposed to be in Portugal today to personaly finalize the deal for Lisandro, but management dropped a bomb today on Porto! In L'Equipe, Bernard Lacombe announced that management had called-off the trip to Portugal today, as well as divulging that negotiations for Toulouse striker Andre Pierre Gignac were underway(see more below).

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Five veteren players who might be on the way out this summer.

Lyon reached a turning point in this season in that there was an influx of youth during their summer mercato which, coupled with their aging core, signaled that the rebuilding of the squad was underway; whether intentional or not, something had to give.

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Stade Camille Fournier d'Evian, Grenoble
Friday 8, May 2009
(17:00CET, 16:00GMT)

Today, Lyon are up in Evian to play an amicable match against one of our cross-town rivals, Grenoble. Judging by the group list and current state of crisis at OL, Puel is taking nothing lightly: not a single CFA player was called-up, and every first-team player except Santos- suspended for ten days, and probably never to set foot on OL premeses again- has made the trip.

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Man Yoo star can't get enough of Sade, Phil Collins and George Michael Are so dull that when asked to share your musical likes on Facebook (or in real-life), you have to respond with things like "All sorts really" or "A bit of everything"? Well that can all change now that world renowned web designer Cris [. Click to continue reading...

Jesus will not be around to make miracles happen this weekend, but hopefully "Easter" will come before nextweek's Nantes match, if not, definately before Marseilles in two weeks.
Week 34
Sat, 02, May 2009
Stade Nungesser
1 P.M. EST(19:00CET, 18:00GMT)

Well, last week's draw vs.

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I'll keep this pretty short since almost everything that needed to be said has been discussed in the comments of the previous post. Here are just a few thoughts I had about the game:

1. It was a mistake to write Lyon off.

Going into the match were predictions of doom, with many expecting a resounding victory for Barca as well as a masterclass display of their superiority.

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"El partido va a ser una verdadera guerra", avisa Cris, central brasileño del Olympique de Lyon, que también comenta que en años anteriores guardaron demasiado respeto hacia sus rivales y que esta vez tendrán que ser "un poco más malvados". El Barça llega al que hasta ahora es su enfrentamiento más importante de la temporada después [. Click to continue reading...

Note to Olympique Lyonnais players Juninho and Cris: If you're gonna break the rules, at least learn to keep your mouths shut. The two Brazilians got fined 10000 and 15000 Euros, respectively, for getting intentionally booked in the Champions League match against Fiorentina. The bookings gave each of them a third Champions League yellow, [. Click to continue reading...

Despite the continuing string of injuries- that would have crippled a mere mortal team- Lyon are through to the knock-out stages of the CL. Doing much better than just picking-up the minimum one point needed before Tuesday's match in order to advance past the group stages, Lyon walked in and out of Stadio Artemio Franchi like they owned the place and took 3 points- and probably some Bistecca alla Fiorentina- with them.

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If any of you read my match preview of yesterday's Coupe de la Ligue game against Metz, you can see that I was expecting a comfortable win for my team. Not champagne football, but a solid, no-nonsense victory. But it turns out that I, along with the entire squad of Olympique Lyonnais, am now being punished for such arrogance.

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I know I normally do a post match write up after CL matches, but I'm running short of time and won't be able to do the usual photo and video fest. Plus most of what needed to be said has already been posted in the comments of this thread. So here are some additional thoughts:

1. Lyon are taking the concept of "the best defense is a good offense" a little too far.

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These 3-0 losses are starting to turn into a yearly ritual. A humiliating one.

The game was so bad that Lyon's official website posted a highlight video that was only three minutes long - usually they are around twenty minutes. Watching it, I realized why. Apart from Mickael Pagis's three goals, not much else happened.

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Match pictures and highlights at the bottom of the post.

THE GOOD:

Definitely the man of the match...on both sides.

Hugo Lloris.

He's definitely shaken off the jitters that afflicted him in the Fiorentina match.

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Today, Luciano Emilio sat down for a live online chat with one of the most popular media outlets in Honduras, Diez. What follows is the translated (thanks, Cris Cruz!) version of an article that includes excerpts from the chat (Spanish version here).

You can also see few photos of Luciano being interviewed on the Video & Pics page.

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Ahhh, hopefully we can have a slight respite from the recent Franco-Italian war that has errupted in our comments section of the post-Lyon-Fiorentina CL match, and during the lull in hostilities, get back to enjoying some L1 action!

Saturday, Lyon travel to Le Stade Jules Deschaseaux in the the northwestern region of Haute-Normandie to take on one of this year's promoted clubs, Le Havre AC.

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In lieu of a proper match review, I present you with this. Match highlights and photos at the end of the post.

1. When picking Brazilians, it's Ederson you want. Leave Fred behind with the rest of the garbage.

I don't mean to come off as a Fred hater, but did he accomplish ANYTHING in today's match - besides the countless times he squandered easy shots on goal?

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As everyone's probably already heard, Fabio Grosso went down in the 18th min of Italy's 2-1 win over Cyprus. Fabio left the game with an injury to his flank. The diagnosis is two fractured ribs. It's believed he will be out of the Lyon line-up for at least one month. That amounts to Grosso missing at least (6) matches.

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Benzema celebrates after scoring Lyon's only goal in last year's 2-1 loss to Lorient.

This week, Lyon travel to Brittany to face FC Lorient at Le Stade Moustoir. Lorient is currently tied for 2nd place with seven other teams in L1, having defeated Le Mans 1-0 in the first week.

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I already posted about how Karim Benzema's face will be gracing the cover of the eagerly anticipated FIFA 09 video game (he and Wayne Rooney will apparently be on the European covers, with Franck Ribery as the "main" guy who appears worldwide).

My question is, why does Benzema look different in every picture?

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Lyon's backline patrolman Cris has given a candid interview about former teammate Hatem Ben Arfa. Even though Inara wrote an excellent "cathartic" piece on HBA's departure and most of us have closed the file on Hatem's Lyon career, I thought this would be of interest.

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