The Japan Times - 'Big brother' Giroud strikes late to lift Lille past Monaco

Giroud, the French national team's all-time leading scorer, was brought in by Lille in part to replace Jonathan David, who was making a scoring Serie A debut for Juventus on Sunday night.

"It was a challenge I thought I could take on," said Giroud. "I'm a man who likes a challenge.

"I'm enjoying myself, even if it's a little harder to recover with age."

Giroud had scored 11 minutes into his first outing for Lille as they drew 3-3 at Brest in the first round.

Sunday's was a far cagier match, before Giroud broke the dull deadlock in the 91st minute.

Receiving the ball with his back to goal, the centre forward spun, glanced towards the far post and then, with goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky moving the wrong way, thumped a shot into the middle of the net.

"This is only the beginning," said Giroud. "There will also be moments that are a little less cool, but we'll deal with those too."

With Monaco pressing, Lille won a penalty on the counter-attack but Giroud swerved his spot-kick over the bar. A "slight blemish", he said.

"We needed this victory to get our season off to a flying start," said Giroud.

"I'm going to continue... in this big brother role, which I quite enjoy.

"We have young players pushing behind us, and at some point they will also be able to contribute."

Coach Bruno Genesio was impressed that Giroud did his damage in the closing minutes, praising the striker's "technical mastery at the end of the match, despite his fatigue".

"We played a real team game and he contributed a lot by keeping possession," he added.

- 'We need aggression' -

Earlier, Rennes had two players sent off in the first 10 minutes and four seconds at Lorient and went on to lose 4-0.

The week before Rennes had played an hour a man short but still beat Marseille 1-0.

"We need aggression," said Rennes coach Habib Beye. "Last year we didn't have enough, now we have too much."

For Rennes the trouble once again started before kick-off.

Last week, central defender Mikayil Faye overslept and missed the season-opening win over Marseille in which another defender Abdelhamid Ait Boudlal was sent off. He was suspended for Sunday's game.

With right-back Przemyslaw Frankowski injured, Mousa Al-Tamari was due to take over at wing-back. But the Jordanian arrived late for a pre-match meeting and was dropped by Beye.

Mahdi Camara, a summer arrival from Saint-Etienne, stepped in for his Rennes debut. It lasted four minutes.

Camara caught Lorient's Dermane Karim in the head with a boot and was sent off.

In the 10th minute, Christopher Wooh brought down Aiyegun Tosin who was running at goal. Wooh was sent off.

"Unfortunately, both red cards were deserved," said Beye.

Statistical service Opta said its Ligue 1 records went back to 1992 and it could find no previous instance of two players from the same team being sent off so soon after the opening whistle.

After an hour's practice playing short-handed last week, the nine men held out until the fourth minute of first-half added time when Sambou Soumano gave the hosts the lead.

The visitors then unravelled. Tosin added a second two minutes into the second half, Pablo Pagis struck in the 65th minute and Theo Le Bris pounced four minutes later.

"Once we were down to nine men, it was a match we could no longer control, a match where we unfortunately had to shut up shop," said Beye.

Y.Mori--JT