Closing the 35th round of the Ligue 1, Olympique de Marseille defeated Angers by 3 to 1, this Sunday, at the Vélodrome stadium. Alexis Sánchez, Dimitri Payet and Jordan Veretout scored the winning goals after Abdallah Sima opened the scoring for the visitors.
With the result, Marseille reached 73 points in the French Championship and opened up an advantage in third place. The current position guarantees a place in the preliminary phase of the Champions League. On the other hand, Angers is the bottom of the competition with just 14 points and was relegated in the last round.
Other French Championship round results
Monaco (4th) drew 0-0 at home with rivals Lille (5th) and maintained the five-point difference between the two teams in the fight to compete in the Europa League next season, while Troyes consummated their relegation to Ligue 2 in this 35th round of the French championship.
Lille pressed, especially in the second half, but the German goalkeeper Alexander Nübel saved shots from Timothy Weah (64′) and Jonathan Bamba (69′ and 83′) to allow the Principality team to at least maintain the tie.
In the other game Troyes was officially relegated to Ligue 2 after the 4-0 defeat suffered away from home against Rennes.
‘ESTAC’ (19th), virtually doomed several weeks ago, are 12 points behind the first team outside the relegation zone, Auxerre (16th), with just three games to go, with 9 points up for grabs.
Troyes thus joins Angers, already relegated weeks ago.
Before the game, a tribute was paid to Arman Soldin, an AFP journalist who died this week in Ukraine and who grew up in the city of Rennes, even playing in the team’s youth teams.
Just before kick-off, the players and crowd at Estadio Roazhon cheered in his memory, as the screens showed an image of the 32-year-old journalist.
Paris Saint-Germain is the leader, six points clear of Lens after Saturday’s thrashing of Ajaccio (5-0).
In the fight for second place, Olympique de Marseille can be two points behind Lens if they beat Angers this Sunday, in the game that closes the 35th round of the French championship.
The 35th round was also marked by several cases of players who refused to wear a shirt against homophobia.
On the occasion of the annual campaign “Homo or straight, we all wear the same shirt”, all players in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 should wear a shirt in the colors of the rainbow this weekend, as well as the armbands of the captains.
But several players from Toulouse, Nantes and Guingamp (Ligue 2) refused to play in this rainbow shirt, from the LGBTQIA+ movement.
“It’s a very minority reaction. We shouldn’t give too much importance to these individual behaviors and forget that more than 400 players played without the slightest problem”, said Bertrand Lambert, member of Panamboyz and Girlz United, in an interview with AFP, one of the promoters of the day in favor of the LGBTQIA+ movement.
Source: Gazetaesportiva
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