One day one match (17/03/2007) : Nancy 0 - 3 OL, imperious in a hostile land

13 years ago today, OL went to the Stade Marcel Picot as the Ligue 1 leader. After having only drawn at the Gerland the previous weekend against Olympique de Marseille (1-1) , OL had to rebound to continue the title race without worry. 13 points ahead of Racing Club de Lens, the Rhone club was still comfortably atop the table.

And OL had to ride their luck Lorrain side. Despite dominant play in the first period, the opponents managed to get a shot off which thankfully hit the crossbar of Grégory Coupet on 35', and the players trained by Gérard Houllier quickly responded thanks to a goal by Milan Baros on a corner kick which was taken by Juninho and knocked down by Sébastien Squillaci in the 37the minute. Now ahead at the break, Lyon were on the right path for the moment.

Back from the locker room, AS Nancy continued to attack and tried to equalize at all costs. But once again, Karim Benzema and his teammates had the best chance at breaking the match open on their very first opportunity of the second period thanks to a powerful shot by the Swedish midfielder Kim Källström on 77’. And it was only two minutes later that the then five-time reigning champions of France extinguished all hope for the club based in Meurthe-et-Moselle. Källström, again, played a marvel of ball onto the head of the Brazilian Fred who beat Grégorini, the Nancy goalkeeper in the 79th minute.

This rather impressive bit of determination therefore granted OL three points and allowed the leader to outpace the runner-up a little more since on this same day, the Northerners fell against AJ Auxerre, and were now sixteen points back. With this success, Olympique Lyonnais equaled the record for the number of wins won away from home over a season with their twelfth game won (PSG now holds the record for an entire season with 15 wins away from home in 2015/2016).