The blueprints for ‘motivated’ Lyon and ‘focused’ leaders Lille to steal Sunday’s decisive duel – tactical analysis

Even Spain’s La Liga, where Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid are all within touching distance of league-leaders Atlético Madrid, doesn’t have as exciting of a title race as the French Ligue 1. Ahead of this weekend’s fixtures, just four points separate first-placed Lille (70 points) from fourth-placed Lyon (67 points). Monaco currently sit in third place on 68 points, while PSG occupy second place, right on Lille’s tail with 69 points. This is, undoubtedly, the most hotly contested title race currently happening in any of Europe’s top-five leagues.

However, this Sunday, in game week 34/38, league-leaders Lille, who have been described as focused on their title charge in the lead-up to this game, travel to Groupama Stadium to take on a motivated Lyon side in what is sure to be, in one way or more, a decisive duel in the ongoing four-team Ligue 1 title race.

In this tactical analysis piece, we provide a preview of Sunday evening’s game by analysing both the tactics that both Lyon and Lille have used of late. This tactical preview provides analysis of how we feel this game is likely to play out, and some potential keys to victory for both teams, through analysis of their strengths and weaknesses.

Lyon’s build-up vs Lille’s pressing

We’ll kick off this tactical analysis by analysing Lille’s pressing and Lyon’s build-up play. This will be a key area of battle on Sunday, with Lyon likely to try and play through the thirds while building out from the back. Lyon don’t like to play many long balls, however, they also aren’t an extremely patient side on the ball. They play aggressively, constantly looking for relatively short-medium distance forward passes from deeper areas to progress the play and put their team in a more threatening position.

To do this, the technical passing quality of their deeper-lying players is key, as is the movement of their more advanced players, who must find space in between the lines to make themselves an attractive passing option for the deeper-lying ball-progressors.

Meanwhile, the aggressiveness of Lille’s pressing can vary. They like to press very aggressively during games, and we’re likely to see this on Sunday at times, however, they’re not the most aggressive team in Ligue 1 by any means. Lille have an average PPDA of 11.78 for the 2020/21 campaign, which places them seventh in France’s top-flight, with six teams having pressed more aggressively, on average, than them this term.

In addition to being aggressive at times, Lille’s pressing is very organised. Given that Les Dogues have the best defensive record in terms of goals conceded (20) of any French top-flight side this season, it’s difficult to argue against the solid and organised defensive system that mastermind Christophe Galtier has engineered.

Figure 1 is taken from the reverse of this Sunday’s fixture, which took place back in November and saw both teams settle for a point as they drew 1-1 at Lille’s Stade Pierre Mauroy. Here, we see Lille set up in their typical 4-4-2 mid-block that they’ve utilised consistently throughout the season to great success.

In this system, during the early stages of the opposition’s build-up play, Lille’s centre-forwards tend not to press the opposition centre-backs or goalkeeper. Instead, they cut off the passing lanes between those players and the holding midfielder(s). Meanwhile, Lille’s wingers tend to sit very narrow. This, combined with the centre-forwards’ passive but deliberate and intelligent defensive play along with the disciplined play of the two central midfielders, allows Lille to congest central midfield significantly, overloading this area and essentially making it very difficult, if not impossible, for the opposition to build through the centre.

These tactics were e