Led 4-1 after 55 minutes of play, Lyon managed an incredible comeback to win on the wire 5-4 against Montpellier thanks to a quadruple from Alexandre Lacazette on Sunday during the 34th day of Ligue 1 and can still hope take 5th place in Europe. With his quadruple, a first for a Montpellier player in L1, Elye Wahi thought he had knocked out OL. The Lyon supporters, disappointed and angry, had little more illusions, some even starting to leave the stadium.
But the Alexandre Lacazette/Bradley Barcola duo (four goals for the first, three assists for the second) woke up Groupama Stadium, then blew it up, with the winning goal scored from the penalty spot after added time ( 90+10). This snatch success allows Olympique Lyonnais to come back tied with Rennais (6th) and three lengths behind Lille (5th), beaten respectively on Saturday by Nice (2-1) and Reims (1-0). The Lyonnais had started the game well with a goal from Lacazette who took over a pass from Barcola (31).
Lacazette as a savior
But OL then scuttled on two individual errors by young Johan Lepenant who lost the ball thirty meters from his goal under pressure from Joris Chotard before the latter served Elye Wahi for the equalizer from close range (40 ). The Montpellier striker’s festival could begin. He again took advantage of a bad intervention from Lepenant, deceived by the effect of the rebound of the ball, to give the advantage to his team (2-1, 41).
In the second half, he did himself justice on a penalty awarded following a foul by Dejan Lovren (53) before taking advantage of a lost ball by Thiago Mendes and a bad exit from Anthony Lopes to make it 4-1 (55). Despised by their public, OL were stung and Lacazette quickly closed the gap by taking a new cross from Barcola (4-2, 58).
“Match that sums up our season”
Lovren then brought Lyon back to 4-3 with a header after receiving a cross from Maxence Caqueret (70) and Barcola could have equalized but his goal in the 78th minute was disallowed for offside. It was only a postponement: Barcola offered the equalizer to Lacazette after an overflow and a center back (4-4, 82). With the penalty he converted in added time, the captain of OL, top scorer in Ligue 1 with his 24 goals, allowed his team to win their fifth game in the last six days in Ligue 1 (1 defeat) and to continue to dream of Europe.
“It’s a game that sums up our season,” said OL goalkeeper and captain Anthony Lopes. We put ourselves in the m…e, but we are lucky to have with Alexandre an extraordinary player”.