madrid coach manuel pellegrini got the better of his lyon counterpart claude puel when they met in the uefa champions league in the 2005/06 group stage.
pellegrini's villarreal cf earned a goalless draw at puel's losc lille métropole before a 1-0 home win earned villarreal progress as group winners and eliminated lille.
puel has had little joy against spanish sides, suffering a 4-2 aggregate defeat by rcd mallorca in the 1999/2000 uefa cup fourth round while at monaco. with lille he enjoyed a 1-0 win against sevilla fc in the 2004/05 uefa cup group stage but suffered a round of 16 elimination by the same opponents in the 2005/06 edition.
the lyon coach lost against spanish opposition in his first ever european tie as a player. his monaco team went down 2-0 at valencia cf in the 1980/81 uefa cup winners' cup first round, before a 3-3 second-leg draw. nine years later puel was in the monaco side that beat real valladolid cf on penalties after a 0-0 aggregate draw in the quarter-finals of the same competition.
a product of the lyon academy, benzema spent five seasons in the club's first team, making 112 league appearances and scoring 43 goals. he helped lyon win four league titles and finished the 20-goal top scorer in ligue 1 in 2007/08.
benzema's fellow lyon old boy mahamadou diarra made 121 appearances for the club between 2002 and 2006 before leaving for the santiago bernabéu.
madrid's french internationals benzema and lassana diarra could line up against several national-team colleagues in the lyon squad. likewise, madrid duo gonzalo higuaín and fernando gago may face lyon's argentinian international lisandro while madrid's kaká and marcelo are team-mates with michel bastos and cris for brazil.
higuaín has french citizenship having been born in brest when his father jorge, also a professional footballer, was playing for stade brestois 29.
kaká and cristiano ronaldo have both helped eliminate lyon from the uefa champions league. the former was in the ac milan side that beat lyon in the 2005/06 quarter-finals, while ronaldo scored the only goal when manchester united fc recorded a home win against lyon in the last 16 in 2007/08 to complete a 2-1 aggregate success.
govou was in the france side that overcame a spain team featuring madrid's iker casillas, sergio ramos, xabi alonso and raúl gonzález in the last 16 of the 2006 fifa world cup finals.
casillas, raúl albiol and sergio ramos helped spain gain a measure of revenge with a 1-0 friendly win against a france featuring lyon midfielder jérémy toulalan and madrid's diarra in february 2008.
kim källström appeared as a late substitute in sweden's 2-1 loss to a spain side including casillas, sergio ramos and albiol at uefa euro 2008.
rafael van der vaart came off the bench to score for afc ajax in a 2-0 win at lyon in the uefa champions league group stage in october 2002. he also featured as a substitute in the netherlands' 4-1 victory against france at uefa euro 2008.
