Gent keeps Champions League hopes up by winning 2-1 at Lyon
LYON, France (AP) - Striker Kalifa Coulibaly scored in the fifth minute of injury time as Gent won 2-1 at Lyon on Tuesday to maintain its chances of qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League.
Lyon failed to properly clear a corner and Coulibaly nodded home from close range to punish a lackluster Lyon side that led through midfielder Jordan Ferri's seventh-minute goal.
The Belgian side equalized in the 32nd minute through Danijel Milicevic's cleverly-worked free-kick.
The win moves Gent onto seven points and above Valencia into second place in Group H behind Zenit St. Petersburg - which beat Spanish side Valencia 2-0 in the group's other match.
Gent can guarantee qualification by beating already-qualified Zenit at home on Dec. 9.
Lyon's one point means it misses out on a Europa League berth.
"You have to admit that our three opponents were better - we either drew or lost," Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas said. "The last goal is cruel, but anyway we didn't do enough to qualify."
Before the match, Lyon fans held scarves aloft as they sang the French national anthem in honor of the victims of the Paris attacks on Nov. 13, which left 130 dead and hundreds more wounded.
With France under a state of emergency and Brussels staying on high alert over serious terror threat, no Gent fans were allowed in.
Lyon made the most of a positive start when Ferri drilled a low shot inside the near post after latching onto a pass from fellow midfielder Rachid Ghezzal, and then Alexandre Lacazette - last season' French league top scorer with 27 goals - went close to making it 2-0 when shooting just wide in the 20th.
"We couldn't make the most of our chances," Lyon right back Henri Bedimo said. "We made too many mistakes and we were hurrying too much. As soon as we got the ball back we lost it again."
Gent leveled after a sustained spell of pressure paid off.
Three players stood in front of the ball, obscuring goalkeeper Anthony Lopes' view, then peeled away simultaneously, at which point Milicevic stepped up to curl the ball quickly into the right corner past a despairing Lopes.
Winger Mathieu Valbuena had a low shot saved early in the second half and Ghezzal shot wide in rare bright moments for a poor Lyon side that has only one point from five games.