PARIS:
Away from Paris Saint-Germain’s quest to carry off Lens and retain the Ligue 1 title, Marseille and Lyon are preventing it out for France’s final computerized Champions League qualifying berth and face off in an enormous recreation on Sunday.
PSG’s crushing dominance of French soccer, with 11 league titles received within the final 13 seasons, means the largest rivalry in Ligue 1 nowadays is arguably that between the golf equipment from the nation’s second and third-largest cities.
Marseille haven’t been champions since 2010 whereas Lyon received the final of their seven straight titles in 2008.
Usually nowadays entering into the Champions League is nearly as good as it could actually get for the golf equipment, and even when Lyon haven’t featured in Europe’s elite competitors since reaching the semi-finals in 2020.
Nonetheless, OL are on track to qualify this season, with a current seven-match profitable run within the league propelling them above crisis-hit Marseille into third.
Solely the highest three in Ligue 1 qualify immediately for the league part of the Champions League, with the group in fourth having to undergo two qualifying rounds.
Lyon, who had received 13 video games in a row in all competitions earlier than a 3-1 loss in Strasbourg final weekend, are presently 5 factors higher off than fourth-placed Marseille earlier than travelling to face their rivals on the Velodrome on Sunday.
“It’s no large drama, we simply have to simply accept it,” mentioned Lyon coach Paulo Fonseca after final week’s recreation.
“We’re not going to win each recreation we play till the top of the season. We’re not a super-team,” added the 52-year-old from Portugal, whose first recreation accountable for Lyon was a 3-2 defeat in Marseille a 12 months in the past.
If he’s relaxed proper now, the identical can’t be mentioned of anybody at Marseille, who haven’t received any of their 4 Ligue 1 video games performed since being knocked out of the Champions League on the finish of the league part in late January.
Roberto De Zerbi’s spell as coach ended after a 5-0 hammering by PSG on February 8, and his alternative Habib Beye’s debut final weekend resulted in a 2-0 loss at Brest.
Marseille have collected simply eight factors from seven league matches in 2026 and should flip that round as failure to return to the Champions League would have a big impact on their funds.
“There may be an comprehensible lack of confidence with the damaging dynamic in the intervening time. It is attending to the gamers,” mentioned Beye earlier than taking his squad off to Spain for a coaching camp in Marbella this week.
Participant to look at: Esteban Lepaul
The Rennes striker’s sensible strike in a 3-0 victory at Auxerre final weekend was his third aim in three video games and helped Franck Haise get off to a profitable begin in his first match as coach of the Brittany aspect.
Lepaul, 25, has now scored 12 targets in Ligue 1 this season together with one for Angers earlier than he joined Rennes in a reported 15 million-euro ($17.7m) switch in late August.
Solely Marseille’s Mason Greenwood (14) and Strasbourg’s Joaquin Panichelli (13) have scored extra in Ligue 1 this season than Lepaul, a former Lyon academy participant whose father Fabrice received the league with Auxerre in 1996 earlier than dying in a street accident in 2020.
