Paris Saint Germain clinched a thrilling 4-2 victory at Marseille on Sunday to register their first win at the Riviera club for five years and prevent their rivals from going top of the French first division.
The 24-year-old striker Guillaume Hoarau scored PSG’s first and final goals, with Peguy Luyindula and Jerome Rothen strikes sandwiched in between, though Marseille had been 2-1 ahead with goals from Mamadou Niang and Mathieu Valbuena. It was PSG’s first league victory at the Velodrome Stadium since Nov. 30, 2003 and condemned Marseille to their first league defeat of the season.
Marseille looked to have paid the penalty of leaving Hatem Ben Arfa on the bench, while PSG’s tactic of playing a second-string team in midweek UEFA Cup action paid dividends as their fresh legs dominated the second half.
Marseille coach Eric Gerets said: “I am extremely disappointed and I feel particularly unhappy on behalf of my players, who had a very good first half.”
“This hurts because the result could have been so different, though we are still in second spot,” Gerets said. “We played the first half exactly as planned, but lacked freshness after the break. We weren’t afraid of going top in the league and in fact this served as motivation.”
PSG’s two-goal striker Hoarau was delighted.
“We had a great match,” Hoarau said. “That was the second time in two matches where we have been behind, but came back well and showed our ability to tackle tough periods. We knew this was a classic derby match, but there were also three points at stake and it became a very special result. Normally I watched this fixture on television, but this time I was in it. At 2-1 down, we knew we had the space to get back in the match, but we needed to stay solid at the back. Up front, we have been in good form for two or three matches.”
Team | P | GD | PTS | |
1 | Lyon | 10 | 6 | 21 |
2 | Marseille | 10 | 7 | 19 |
3 | Le Mans | 10 | 7 | 18 |
4 | Bordeaux | 10 | 4 | 18 |
5 | Toulouse | 10 | 1 | 18 |
6 | Paris St Germain | 10 | 3 | 17 |
7 | Grenoble | 10 | 2 | 17 |
8 | Lille | 10 | 2 | 16 |
9 | Rennes | 10 | 4 | 15 |
10 | Nice | 10 | 2 | 15 |
11 | Caen | 10 | 4 | 13 |
12 | Auxerre | 10 | -1 | 12 |
13 | Monaco | 10 | -3 | 10 |
14 | St Etienne | 10 | -4 | 10 |
15 | Nantes | 10 | -9 | 10 |
16 | AS Nancy | 10 | -3 | 9 |
17 | Lorient | 10 | -4 | 9 |
18 | Le Havre | 10 | -6 | 8 |
19 | Valenciennes | 10 | -8 | 7 |
20 | Sochaux | 10 | -4 | 6 |
Bordeaux could have sneaked provisionally into second spot with a win at Nice, but were held instead 2-2 after throwing away a two-goal lead, Nice leveling affairs with a penalty six minutes into stoppage time by Loic Remy.
Brazilian Wendel had given Bordeaux an 11th-minute lead with a rasping free-kick and Argentine Fernando Cavenaghi made it two nine minutes after the restart.
It looked all over, but Eric Mouloungui pulled one back as Nice, hovering on the fringes of the top six, belatedly began to show some muscle in attack, before Remy clinched a point after Pierre Ducasse was adjudged — somewhat harshly — to have handled in the box.
Le Mans also drew 2-2 away, in their case at Rennes, while Toulouse drew 0-0 against Monaco.
Lille are eighth on 16 points after a brace from Ludo Obraniak secured a 2-2 home draw with Caen, who remain in mid-table.
Down at the bottom, Le Havre thanked two goals from Jean-Michel Lesage as they recovered from going a goal down inside a minute to win 2-1 against fellow strugglers Valenciennes, while Lorient dragged Nantes back down toward the mire with a 3-0 win in their Breton derby.
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