It was a pleasant weekend for former Super Eagles safehand and Lille goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama as Lille earned vital away win at the expense of homers Olympique Lyonnais.
Lille who occupy the 13th position on the log shocked their hosts in the 38th minutes of the match thanks to Algerian import Yassine Benzia. The visitors doubled lead in the 80th minute when Benzia again converted a penalty. Interestingly Benzia who became the tormentor in chief was Olympique Lyonnais youth academy graduate.
The hosts however converted their own penalty six minutes later all efforts to earn eqauliser afterwards proved abortive. A similar visit late last year saw Lille lose 2-0 With January signing Memphis Depay making his first start for OL, the hosts were optimistic of maintaining their hold on fourth place, particularly as Lille arrived having drawn their previous three games and having won just one of their last ten away matches in the top flight.
The new addition from Manchester United almost brokethe deadlock when he smashed a shot off the bar (9′) before winning a free-kick Mathieu Valbuena sent narrowly over (14′) as OL seemed to be laying the platform for a fourth successive home win.
That was without counting on Benzia. The LOSC forward, who made his Ligue 1 debut in the colours of OL aged just 17 during the 2012/13 season, first provided Eric Bauthéac with a chance he should not have missed (27′) before taking matters into his own hands.
Younousse Sankharé picked out the run of his team-mate, and Benzia’s low shot took a ricochet off Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa en route to goal, wrong-footing Anthony Lopes to open the scoring (38′).
It was Benzia’s first league strike in 24 shots this season, and the first time he had hit the back of the net since 10 January last year.
Alexandre Lacazette scored his 18th of the season, and his seventh strike in a red-hot streak over five league games, from the penalty spot after he had been fouled by Adama Soumaoro (86′), but could not prevent OL suffering a damaging defeat in their pursuit of a top-three finish.