YNWA takes a look back at our previous French visitors in Europe's premier club competition as we prepare to face Olympique Lyonnais for the first time ever on Tuesday.
Up against Marseille
Marseille became the first French side to win at Anfield, at the tenth attempt, when they won 1-0 in a Champions League group game in October 2007, with Eric Gerets in charge of the visitors for the first time and ex-reds Djibril Cissé and Bolo Zenden both featuring. The reds produced a very lacklustre performance as Mathieu Valbuena grabbed the only goal. "That could be the worst performance of my time here", Benítez said. "It was very bad, a very bad game."
Steven Gerrard headed the only goal of the game as we entertained L'OM again in November 2008. This was Benítez's 66th European game in charge, overtaking Bob Paisley's club record.
Ton up
Brazilian midfielder Lucas Leiva and Argentine winger Sebastián Leto both made their reds bows as we triumphed 4-0 in the second leg of our qualifier against Toulouse in August 2007, to secure a 5-0 aggregate victory against our hundredth different opponents in European competition. Peter Crouch and skipper Sami Hyypiä both netted before Dirk Kuyt added a late brace as we secured our fiftieth home win in Europe's premier competition. Before the match, the Z-Cars theme was played in tribute to the recently-murdered teenager Rhys Jones, whose parents and brother were present on the touchline in their Everton shirts, on a day when the city of Liverpool celebrated its 800th birthday.
Other CL visitors from across the channel
We beat AS Monaco 2-0 in the group stage in September 2004 with strike partners Djibril Cissé and Milan Baroš both on the scoresheet.
On Halloween 2006, Rafael Benítez named an unchanged side for the first time in exactly a century of games as we beat Girondins de Bordeaux 3-0 to secure a place in the knock-out phase with two games remaining, thanks to a Luis García brace and a first reds goal of the season from Steven Gerrard. Fernando Menegazzo was sent off for the visitors, with Istanbul hero Vladimír Šmicer confined to the stands due to injury.
