This was Total Lyon, a realisation of the vision Michele Kang has spent millions creating
Melchie Dumornay is being swarmed, the Haiti forward smothered in a pile of limbs and gratitude. The final whistle is still 12 minutes from being blown, a meagre goal separating OL Lyonnes from Arsenal in a match that has been anything but straightforward. But it is a goal all of Dumornay’s making.
And even team-mates lose all sense of task, of time and space, when placed in such proximity to someone operating in a dimension all of their own. The goal that made it 3-1 to the French side in the second leg of the Women’s Champions League semi-final — and, crucially, won the tie — was a portrait of the game’s central protagonist: Dumornay in the 86th minute lifting a ball over the top of the Arsenal defence that perfectly found the run of Jule Brand, a pass that was a photocopy of the one Dumornay attempted 20 minutes earlier but that eluded Kadidiatou Diani by inches. No problem.
Reset. Retry. Eventually, Dumornay will come good.
Overturning a 2-1 first-leg deficit, Lyonnes deserved their victory. Their intensity, physicality and technical play were superior from the start, the type of performance expected from a superteam built loudly and with no expense spared by owner Michele Kang, who brought in France forward Marie-Antoinette Katoto and USWNT midfielder Lily Yohannes in the summer. And if there is a message to be taken from this semi-final victory, it is the ongoing reinstatement of Lyonnes at Europe’s top table.
The Champions League has historically been their playground, their eight titles an unrivalled point of pride, but the recent seasons have tested their pedigree. Lyonnes’ last Champions League triumph was in 2022. They had reached one final in three seasons.
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