Football Further

Posts Tagged ‘Pierre-Alain Frau’

A bite-size round-up of the week’s events in French football, for anyone who wants to keep up with what’s happening in Ligue 1 but hasn’t got the time (or the French) to do so.

Ligue 1
Exactly a month ago, Football Further speculated that, were Lille to fail to win Ligue 1, Dariusz Dudka’s late equaliser in their 1-1 draw at Auxerre would be pinpointed as a key turning point. Should they go on and triumph, however, Pierre-Alain Frau’s 91st-minute winner at Marseille last Sunday could be seen as the goal that changed the course of the title race.

As so often in recent weeks, the fixture list meant Lille had had to watch their rivals whittle down their lead before stepping onto the field at the Vélodrome. Rennes were three points in front after making it five wins from five with a 1-0 success at Montpellier, while Lyon were just a point behind thanks to a 5-0 shellacking of Arles-Avignon. Victory for OM, meanwhile, would have taken the champions two points above their opponents.

Eden Hazard gave the visitors the lead with a stunningly opportunistic 35-yard strike (see below), before Loïc Rémy equalised with half an hour to play. It seemed that Lille would be left to rue the hasty finishing of Gervinho and Moussa Sow during the first half, but in the first minute of injury time, super-sub Frau got ahead of Gabriel Heinze to steer home Emerson’s centre and bring OM’s four-game winning run to an end.

Elsewhere, Auxerre’s 16-game winless streak finally finished, and in some style, as Kamel Chafni’s sumptuous half-volley snatched a 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain. Bordeaux’s mini-revival continued with a 3-1 victory at Brest, but Saturday’s fare produced a frankly preposterous goals-per-game average of just 0.66.

Marseille’s trip to Rennes tonight kicks off the Week 27 action, but the visitors will be without Brazilian striker/pony-tailed carthorse Brandão after he was formally placed under police investigation over allegations that he raped a 23-year-old woman following a night out in Aix-en-Provence.

Ligue 1 results
Saturday: Caen 1-0 Saint-Etienne, Lorient 0-0 Nancy, Montpellier 0-1 Rennes, Nice 0-0 Lens, Toulouse 0-1 Sochaux, Valenciennes 0-0 Monaco, Auxerre 1-0 PSG; Sunday: Brest 1-3 Bordeaux, Lyon 5-0 Arles-Avignon, Marseille 1-2 Lille

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A bite-size round-up of the week’s events in French football, for anyone who wants to keep up with what’s happening in Ligue 1 but hasn’t got the time (or the French) to do so.

Ligue 1
Having managed to avoid defeat since a 3-1 loss at home to Marseille in Week 10, Lille’s resistance finally buckled when they fell to a 1-0 loss in a scrappy and otherwise unremarkable game at Montpellier last Sunday.

Moroccan starlet Younes Belhanda scored the game’s only goal in the 84th minute, charging at the retreating Lille defence from the right flank, circumventing Adil Rami’s impromptu war dance on the edge of the box and drilling a deflected shot into the bottom-left corner. To make matters worse for Lille, all their title rivals won.

Rennes are now just two points off the pace in second place following a 2-1 win at Toulouse, while Marseille, Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain are all within four points of the leaders. Marseille moved up to third place by beating Saint-Etienne 2-1 in a fractious affair at the Vélodrome, but the night ended on a sour note for the champions after André-Pierre Gignac had to go off with a groin injury that ruled him out of the Champions League match with Manchester United.

Lyon and PSG remain level on points in fourth and fifth place respectively after both enjoyed one-sided victories. Lyon ran out 4-0 victors at home to Nancy on Friday night, while PSG outclassed Nice 3-0 on Sunday.

The week’s most eye-catching result was Bordeaux’s 5-1 capitulation at Lorient (after a tidy hat-trick from Kévin Gameiro), which prompted Bordeaux coach Jean Tigana to admit that the 2009 champions are now officially in crisis. There were red cards for Lorient full-back Franco Sosa and Bordeaux goalkeeper Cédric Carrasso - who was sent off for twice handling the ball outside his area – while Sochaux’s 3-2 win at Lens also finished with 10 men on each side after Toifilou Maoulida and Kévin Anin both saw red following a first-half tête-à-tête.

Ligue 1 results
Friday: Lyon 4-0 Nancy; Saturday: Auxerre 1-1 Arles-Avignon, Brest 2-0 Monaco, Caen 2-2 Valenciennes, Lens 2-3 Sochaux, Marseille 2-1 Saint-Etienne, Lorient 5-1 Bordeaux; Sunday: Montpellier 1-0 Lille, Nice 0-3 PSG, Toulouse 1-2 Rennes

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