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PSG star Jackie Groenen has tried to explain Lyon’s dominant record against her team as the two meet in the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-finals.
Lyon are the team to beat in France, winning 16 of the last 17 league titles, and that has often been the case in Europe, too, with no club bettering their record of eight UWCL trophies. PSG have tried to chase OL down over the years but have largely come up short, with just one league title and three French cups to their name.
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Most of the time, it is Lyon that the Parisians are battling for those trophies and, more often that not, they come up short in those meetings. Indeed, Lyon have lost just nine of their 62 clashes with PSG and only one of their last 10 encounters.
As the two French rivals prepare to go head-to-head in the UWCL semi-finals this weekend, with the winner to face Barcelona or Chelsea in May’s final, PSG star Groenen has reflected on what makes it so tough to beat Lyon.
“They have a lot of quality. That’s the first point,” she said. “That’s honestly why it makes it hard to play them because they have a lot of different styles that they play, with different styles of players. They’ve got a lot of different qualities, which makes it less obvious how to defend the different styles of attacking, and they’re just physically very strong as well.
“I think that’s something that we had to work on. They’re a big team, they’re a good team, but we’re trying to get there too. I think there’s been such a progression that I’m very curious about the game. I’m very excited because I think we can [beat them]. At the moment, I think we can and that’s something everyone feels. But you know how it is with rivalries, it’s never easy.”
Asked how much of the game is about mentality too, where Lyon have an edge given their dominance, Groenen said: “It’s obviously a huge part because if you have the experience of winning, it’s something that counts as well on the pitch. I think that’s something that we’ve been working on this year and I think that’s also something that you could see in the last game [a 1-1 draw in February], so we try to work from there. I think with the qualities we have now, we will be able to beat anyone if we manage to play our own game.”
PSG secured a huge win over Lyon in the quarter-finals of this competition back in 2021, a result that some thought could be the end of OL’s reign in Europe as clubs like Barcelona and Chelsea rose to the fore. However, Lyon were back a year later to win an eighth UWCL title, while PSG have not reached a final since their second back in 2017.
Lyon will host the first leg of this semi-final on Saturday, April 20, while the second leg will be played on Sunday, April 28, in Paris. The winner will play in the UWCL final in Bilbao on Saturday, May 25.
