Lille did not have enough arguments on Thursday to overcome Klaksvik, a small club from the Faroe Islands. Paulo Fonseca, the northern coach, had decided to rotate a lot.
Despite a few chances, Lille proved incapable of bringing down a regrouped opponent. The draw is, on the contrary, historic for Klaksvik: it is the first European point gleaned by a Faroese team.
The match: 0-0
Klaksvik had already achieved a small feat with the draw obtained at the break (0-0). In a match where the context, the synthetic turf and an opponent retreating to his goal gave the air of the 32nd finals of the Coupe de France, Lille did not show much. Certainly rejuvenated with the tenure of Amine Messoussa (18 years old), Alan Virginius (20 years old) and especially Ayyoub Bouaddi, who celebrated his 16th birthday on Monday, more speed and delays would have been necessary to destabilize the opposing defense.
In the end very few chances except a shot from Yazici, close to the top corner (19th), this cross from Haraldsson for a too short Messoussa (29th). The Icelandic midfielder did it again but no one was there for his back pass with two attackers, Virginius and Messoussa, who had made the same call at the near post (41st). A strike from Gudmundsson (42nd) off target summed up all the difficulties of the Northerners in being just dangerous against an opponent who was very limited offensively.
Returning from the locker room, same room, same atmosphere. Yazici’s strike (49th) and that of Virginius on the crossbar (56th), the first flash of the former Sochaux player, suggested a revival on the Lille side but Fonseca’s players fell back into their inability to find solutions. The Portuguese coach, with the entries of Malouda (17 years old) and Miramon (20 years old) left no room for doubt: in this trip, Lille will only have thought of the derby against Lens on Sunday.
Ten minutes from the end, Jonathan David and Edon Zhegrova were called to the rescue (79th). We hardly saw them.
Lille left their trip to the Faroe Islands with a very small point. Not really a good deal after the victory of Slovan Bratislava on the field of Olimpija Ljubljana (1-0). But the lead was elsewhere for LOSC with the trip to the Stade Bollaert-Delelis in Lens.
