Lyon vs Lille

A mouth-watering Coupe de France last-16 tie between Lyon and Lille takes place at the Groupama Stadium this midweek.

After a hard-earned 2-1 home win over Metz in their Coupe de France curtain-raiser, Lyon thumped lower-league Chambery 3-0 last time out to secure another last-16 appearance. But progressing beyond the stage could be tricky, even though ‘Les Gones’ come into proceedings unbeaten in their last four matches across all competitions (W3, D1). Following an impressive run of three consecutive clean sheets, Laurent Blanc’s side claimed a convincing 3-1 Ligue 1 win at Troyes last weekend. Despite beating Lille on penalties in their latest Coupe de France showdown back in January 2020, Lyon have found this opposition hard to play against lately. Except for a narrow 1-0 league triumph earlier this season, they’ve failed to beat Lille in 12 of their last 13 competitive H2Hs (D6, L6 – 90mins only).

On the other hand, Lille strolled to a comfortable 2-0 home win over Troyes in the opening Coupe de France round before posting an identical triumph over second-tier Pau last time out. However, Paulo Fonseca’s men have recently endured a rough patch, going scoreless in back-to-back league outings (D1, L1) before a come-from-behind 3-1 away win over Rennes at the weekend. Lille’s away fixtures in 2023 have mostly been keenly-contested low-scoring affairs, as three of their four such contests have featured under 2.5 goals. The continuation of that trend is almost inevitable, with Lille’s last two visits to Lyon yielding an identical 1-0 scoreline (W1, L1).