He could not see properly
No muscle pull. No collision. Nabil Bentaleb walked off the Pierre-Mauroy pitch because his vision had gone.
Davide Ancelotti laid it out after Lille’s defeat to Real Betis. “At half-time, Nabil was not seeing well and he could not go on. He was already having problems towards the end of the first half. After that, I asked him to stay on because I did not want to lose the shape. He stayed on for three minutes, but he could not continue,” the Lille coach said.
Mukau came on at the break as a precaution. Nobody at the club is yet talking about him missing Sunday’s home game against Troyes.
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A lead that lasted about four minutes after the restart
Lille had the game where they wanted it at 2-1. Ayase Ueda headed in Ethan Mbappe’s cross after 12 minutes, Marc Bartra pulled one back on 33, then an Alexsandro Ribeiro deflection from a corner put the hosts back in front three minutes later.
Then it unravelled. Bartra levelled again from an Isco free-kick in the 49th minute. Troy Parrott put Betis ahead four minutes after that. And on 56, Ethan Mbappe was sent off for an elbow.
Ten men, and Lille essentially stopped existing. Olivier Giroud had two looks at an equaliser late on and took neither. 2-3.
A first lesson for Ancelotti
His first night as a Champions League head coach. He pointed to the first half, then spent the rest of the press conference circling the same question: why his team fell apart the moment the game asked something of them.
Fair question.
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