In the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16 matchup against Lyon, APOEL suffered a minimal 1:0 road loss in France.

Ivan Trickovski started on the left wing for APOEL in a 4-2-3-1 formation against Lyon at the Stade de Gerland in France.  APOEL played very defensive from the outset as Ivan spent much of his time tracking back to help out the defense.  In the 22nd minute, while on a counter attack, Trickovski seemed to be in a good position and attempted a shot from the edge of the area that went wide of the goal but it did not count as the assistant referee ruled Ivan to be in an offside position.

Lyon scored the only goal of the game in the 58th minute through Alexandre Lacazette whose shot took a slight deflection before going past the APOEL keeper to the back of the net.  APOEL only had one shot on goal during the game and that did not come until the 88th minute when substitute Gustavo Manduca’s effort was saved nicely by Lyon keeper Hugo Lloris before going for a corner.

APOEL was not able to get the much needed away goal bus still has a chance in the return leg which will be played on 7 March in Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus.  APOEL will need to win and also play good defense since a Lyon goal in the return leg means that the Cypriot club will need three goals to get through to the next round due to the away goals rule.