Ligue 1 2019/20: Reims vs Olympique Lyon – tactical analysis

In the 19th round of French Ligue 1, Olympique Lyon’s struggle continued as they had a tough time visiting Reims. The highly physical duel ended with a 1:1 draw and the away team had a lot of problems shaping to their opponents who played a very nice match but also didn’t manage to get out as winners. David Guion’s men controlled the game in the biggest part of 90 minutes and, although they weren’t always in possessional dominance over rivals, can be easily seen as the better side.

This tactical analysis will show you the tactics both managers used to try to win in this fixture but failed due to good neutralizations from their opponents and a bit of bad luck.

Lineups

The hosts’ coach went into the game with 4-2-3-1 formation that was attack-oriented. His idea was to narrow the area of manoeuvre for the opposition and to play direct football through their flank-forces embodied in Moussa Doumbia and Mathieu Cafaro who played as wingers. They provided a single striker Rémi Oudin with help, whilst the midfield was held by the Xavier Chavalerin-Tristan Dingomé-Marshall Munetsi trio.

Rudi Garcia set his team in the same formation as the rival manager and relied mostly on the creation of Houssem Aouar, who was their main catalyst along with the right-winger Bertrand Traoré. Moussa Dembélé was the target-man of their side who had a lot of help coming from inverted winger Martin Terrier. The wide option for them on the left-handed side was Maxwel Cornet who occupied the left full-back position in this duel.