Kylian Mbappe and Neymar scored late goals on Friday to give Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) a 2-1 win over nearest challengers Lille, as the French champions extended to 12 games their perfect start to the season at the end of a troubled day for the club.
The Qatari-owned club were forced to release a statement shortly before the start of the match to deny allegations made by a Football Leaks investigation that they had worked with UEFA to cover up breaches of their Financial Fair Play rules.
However, Mbappe restored smiles at the Parc des Princes with a magnificent strike from just outside the box 20 minutes from time, and Neymar gave PSG a two-goal buffer before Nicolas Pepe pulled one back for the away side from the penalty spot.
Photo: AFP
PSG extend their lead at the top of Ligue 1 to 11 points after a 12th straight league win, which means that they have now beaten Tottenham Hotspur’s old record for consecutive wins at the start of a season.
Spurs emerged victorious from their opening 11 matches in their double-winning 1960-1961 season, a performance that had stood since as a record in Europe’s so-called “big five leagues” — Spain, England, Italy, Germany and France.
The result is a boost for PSG ahead of their crucial Champions League trip to Italy on Tuesday to face Napoli, when a defeat could leave Thomas Tuchel’s side on the brink of an early exit.
“We deserved the result and the win record. Ligue 1 is not that easy. It is down to our hard work. We give everything on the field,” skipper Thiago Silva told Canal Plus.
Mbappe had a shot deflected just wide as PSG stepped up the pressure after the break, and it was the 19-year-old who broke the deadlock in the 70th minute, beating Maignan after Neymar’s pass was kindly deflected into his path by Jose Fonte.
That was his 11th goal in eight Ligue 1 games since winning the World Cup with France, and Neymar then got his ninth in the league this season to seal the win.
The Brazilian played a one-two with Mbappe before firing home from 18 yards with six minutes left, before Lille reduced the arrears in stoppage time, Pepe converting a penalty awarded for a Thilo Kehrer handball.
BUNDESLIGA
AP, STUTTGART, Germany
VfB Stuttgart’s hopes of a revival under new coach Markus Weinzierl took another blow on Friday in a 3-0 loss at home to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Sebastien Haller and Ante Rebic scored in the first half — both set up by 18-year-old striker Luka Jovic — before Nicolai Mueller completed the scoring late for the visitors.
SERIEA
AFP, MILAN, Italy
Dries Mertens scored a hat-trick as SSC Napoli warmed up for next week’s crucial Champions League game against PSG with a 5-1 thrashing of Empoli to go back to second place in the league and put the pressure on champions Juventus.
“We were just deadly in attack,” said coach Carlo Ancelotti as Napoli closed the gap on Juventus to three points.
Lorenzo Insigne opened after nine minutes in the San Paolo Stadium with Belgian Mertens also scoring in the first half.
Mertens added two more after the break in the 64th minute and in stoppage time with Poland’s Arkadiusz Milik also getting on the scoresheet in the last minute.
However, the former Chelsea and Real Madrid boss said he was “more angry than excited by the result.”
“I even got angry with Mertens,” he said. “He was playing as a winger and I shouted at him that if he wanted to score goals, he had to go more central. He replied that assists were important too. He got a hat-trick in the end — and an assist, too.”
Insigne got the first after nine minutes after good work by Kalidou Koulibaly with the Senegalese defender breaking through from his own half.
Luca Antonelli thought he had scored the equalizer for Empoli on 15 minutes, but the goal was ruled offside.
Insigne then intercepted a reckless Giovanni Di Lorenzo back-pass to set up Mertens, who slotted in a low drive from a distance on 38 minutes.
Francesco Caputo gave Empoli hope when he beat the offside trap with a diagonal shot after 58 minutes, but six minutes later Mertens got his second.
Insigne and Mertens were instrumental in Milik’s fourth on 90 minutes, with Insigne then setting up Mertens for his 75th Serie A goal deep into injury time, and 98th in total for Napoli.
“I’ve never had such a large and balanced squad before, so I can chop and change the line-up without that much difference in quality,” Ancelotti said. “But the truth is that Insigne and Mertens are a difficult pair to leave out.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB