Munich: Olympique Lyon have the class to upset Bayern Munich in their Champions League semi-final and keep their fine run going, Lyon coach Claude Puel said.
Lyon, who have reached the last four of the tournament for the first time, knocked out Real Madrid in the first knockout stage. They face Bayern in Munich in the first leg on Wednesday."It is fantastic for our club to be in the semi-finals," the soft-spoken Puel told reporters on Tuesday. "But we said it before the (quarter-final) against Bordeaux: why should it end here. Our run should not end here."
"Bayern are confident, they had a huge win on the weekend (7-0 against Hanover 96), they are playing well but I still think we have what it takes to trouble them tomorrow."
Puel said the long bus trip from Lyon to Munich, due to airport closures around Europe, had not affected the players.
Lyon arrived in a 10-van convoy via Stuttgart on Tuesday as volcanic ash shut down all northern European airports in the past days.
"You need to be able to adapt. This is just one more thing we have to adapt," he said.
"A bit more massage, a bit more walking and stretching. But I feel we have adapted," said the coach, who refused to answer questions about the involvement of forward Sidney Govou in a prostitution investigation in France.
Govou and Bayern playmaker Franck Ribery are among several players to have been questioned by police as witnesses.
"There is no special context to this game," he said sharply, brushing the issue aside.
He also said it was amusing to read media reports of alleged Bayern interest in goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and defender Ali Cissokoh."It is amusing to hear that but also a bit sad that it comes out a few days before the match."
Lloris himself brushed aside the speculation.
"Bayern are a great club but today my case is secondary, the season is not over so I do not think about it. I belong to a team. We are not individuals here," he told reporters.
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