Girondins de Bordeaux and LOSC Lille Metropole missed their chance to cut the gap on French league leaders Olympique de Marseille when they could only manage dull draws on Saturday.
Marseille would move five points clear if they could make it five wins in five matches this campaign with a success at winless AS Nancy-Lorraine yesterday — though Olympique Lyonnais would expect to keep the margin down to two points by beating AC Ajaccio at home.
Though they remain unbeaten, Bordeaux, the six-time Ligue 1 champions, missed out on the chance to leapfrog big-spending Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon after they could only manage a goalless draw at Valenciennes to stand fourth — three points off the pace.
Lille missed a chance to move into the top five when they were also held, 1-1, at ES Troyes AC, who thanked a late equalizer from Sebastien Grax for a point which leaves Lille winless since the opening day of the season.
Dimitri Payet had put the northerners ahead in the 38th minute, but Grax pegged them back with a neat right-footed effort to frustrate the visitors four days before they take on BATE Borisov of Belarus in the UEFA Champions League.
With no Champions League distractions, Marseille and Lyon could put the pressure on if they won their encounters yesterday and the riches of Europe’s premier club competition could be a poisoned chalice for the likes of PSG and reigning French champions Montpellier Herault.
At least PSG will relish their opening match against Dynamo Kiev after Friday’s 2-0 win over Toulouse.
In contrast, Montpellier sold France striker Olivier Giroud to their opening European opponents Arsenal, while in the league nothing is going right after Friday brought a third league defeat in five games — a 3-1 reverse at Stade de Reims.
In Saturday’s other matches, Sochaux-Montbeliard managed their first points of the new season with a 1-0 win at former giants AS Saint-Etienne, OGC Nice swatted Stade Brestois 29 4-2 in a midtable battle and modest Evian Thonon Gaillard bagged their first win — 3-0 at home to SC Bastia — to climb out of the drop zone.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
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