Olympique Lyon thrashed Manchester City 3-1 as Rudi Garcia’s men maintained their run in the Champions League.
It was a great night for Ligue 1 as Lyon overcame the challenge of the Citizens. The English side huffed and puffed but could not get that ball in the net.
Lyon came under severe pressure from the English side after going ahead in the 27th minute. Rudi Garcia did not have any qualms about his side’s ability to hold off City, hailing the work done by Italian fitness coach, Paolo Rongoni.
“I was not worried about running out of steam, because we have an Italian fitness coach and I knew we’d hold out brilliantly,” Garcia told Sky Sports Italia.
Rongoni has adjusted Lyon to the new normal. However, the Italian admitted that it was a tough task given injuries in leagues that had restarted unlike Ligue 1.
The fitness coach gave an insight on the work he had done, reflecting that they had to transform their approach to prepare for their Champions League engagements.
“Everything was new after the coronavirus, as we hadn’t restarted the Ligue 1 season, so we had to adapt. I heard from a few colleagues in Italy and other countries to figure out what was happening,” Football Italia quoted Rongoni.
“It was a little frightening before resuming because there were injuries all over the place. In Germany and Italy in particular, thigh and calf strains were popping constantly.”
“So we totally transformed our fitness work and it’s something we might try again in future. As Rudi said, we split eight weeks of training into two blocks. In the first, we worked hard physically, in the second we just played football.”
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