Lyon coach Rudi Garcia hailed his team for seeing off Juventus and the “extraterrestial” Cristiano Ronaldo to reach the Champions League quarter-finals on Friday.
Captain Memphis Depay’s early penalty sealed Lyon’s berth in the last eight despite losing 2-1 on the night in Turin.
A goal up after winning February’s first leg, Lyon will face Manchester City at the final tournament in Lisbon after drawing 2-2 on aggregate and going through on away goals.
“We came up against an opponent who has an extraterrestrial in its squad,” said Garcia of five-
time Ballon
d’Or winner Ronaldo who scored both of Juve’s goals on Friday.
Lyon squeezed past the Italian champions thanks to Depay’s 12th-minute penalty which put Garcia’s side two goals ahead in the tie and left Juve with a mountain to climb.
Needing to score three unanswered goals in order to go through, Portuguese star Ronaldo tried his best to drag the Italian champions over the line.
He levelled the scores on the night with a penalty of his own with two minutes left in the opening period before crashing home a second goal on the hour mark.
However Juve performed poorly and Lyon managed to hold on to set up a clash with Pep Guardiola’s City on August 15.
“I think we did very well in the first half,” added Garcia.
“Unfortunately the penalty awarded to them, which was completely unjustified, put them back in the game.”
“This is the victory of a group. We wanted to be in the Final 8 in Lisbon, we are there.
“We’ll still be outsiders and that suits us very well.”
Despite their nine consecutive Italian league titles in a row, Juventus could not get past a French side that finished seventh in Ligue 1 this season.
“We went out because of the first half in Lyon,” said Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri.
“I’m devastated, but satisfied with the performance. We are very sorry. We had a good game tonight.”