Sloppy Marseille loses at Reims and opens the door for PSG to clinch Ligue 1 title
Sloppy Marseille loses at Reims and opens the door for PSG to clinch Ligue 1 title
Sloppy Marseille lost at struggling Reims 3-1 and opened the door for Paris Saint-Germain to possibly clinch a record-extending 13th Ligue 1 title on Saturday.
A victory at Saint-Etienne would guarantee PSG the title only also if Monaco and Nice draw in Saturday's late game.
Advertisement
Second-placed Marseille dominated before falling behind in the 29th minute. Japan forward Keito Nakamura wrong-footed defender Leonardo Balerdi inside the penalty area and curled the ball in for his ninth league goal.
Careless play led to the second goal as Reims broke from midfield and Nakamura shrugged off Valentin Rongier before setting up Mamadou Diakhon for a left-foot finish.
Valentin Atangana added the third and Rongier pulled one back for inconsistent Marseille, which slipped to its fourth defeat in five games.
Marseille midfielder Adrien Rabiot was scathing about the attitude of some of his teammates.
Advertisement
'It's just not good enough. I get the impression of watching guys who don't want to play in the Champions League next season,' Rabiot told broadcaster beIN SPORTS. "If some players don't want to, then they should say so before the game and just not play.'
It was Reims' first league win since November.
Ultras protest government crackdown
Several thousand Saint-Etienne fans took to the streets before their game in a protest march against French interior minister Bruno Retailleau's plan to dissolve the club's two main ultras groups, the Magic Fans and the Green Angels.
Those at the front carried a giant green banner in the club's colors, which read "Le Chaudron Ne Se Dissout Pas' (The Cauldron Does Not Dissolve). The Cauldron is the nickname given to Saint-Etienne's Stade Geoffroy-Guichard because of its intense atmosphere.
Advertisement
Club president Ivan Gazidis joined the fans and made a speech.
'I am very happy to see our city united" he said. "It's a wonderful response to this unfair process that will resolve nothing.'
Other groups of ultras are also under threat of being disbanded. The French interior ministry said there has been soccer-related violence at 64 matches this season, leading to 627 arrests.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Liverpool could sign two of the most expensive players EVER
Liverpool could sign two of the most expensive players EVER Liverpool have signed Wirtz, Isak next? Any deal done for the Swede is not going to be easy. Isak is one of the best forwards in the world and is under contract until 2028. In an item discussing Liverpool's reported interest in the Geordie hitman, the Telegraph reveals that no discussions have yet been opened over Isak. Advertisement With focus on Wirtz up until his unveiling on Friday, Liverpool have not yet made an approach for the former Borussia Dortmund forward. Moreover it's claimed that Liverpool wouldn't just have to beat their newly-set club transfer record for Wirtz - they will have to come very close to breaking the world transfer record if they have any chance of talking Newcastle into a sale. © IMAGO - Florian Wirtz Liverpool Newcastle want deal approaching £200m for Isak 'We are not just talking about a British record transfer fee, we are looking at something approaching the £200 million world record Paris St-Germain paid to sign Neymar from Barcelona,' the report states. Advertisement PSG currently own the records for the two most expensive transfers of all time (€). Wirtz has just become the seventh-most expensive player of all time having moved from Bayer Leverkusen - potentially rising to fourth just behind Philippe Coutinho - if all add-ons are met. Coutinho swapped Liverpool for Barcelona in a €145m deal back in January 2018 - allowing Liverpool to plough the proceeds into Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker. Wirtz could end up topping out at €137.5m. © IMAGO Liverpool tipped to break records in transfer market Liverpool will potentially end up with TWO of the most expensive players of all time - assuming Isak's price actually beats the Wirtz fee. Advertisement In fact, it's likely to come closer to the €180m PSG paid to Monaco for Mbappe in 2018. Mbappe, second on the list after Neymar, initially moved on loan from Monaco in 2017 before the deal was made permanent a year later. These deals will signal a shift in transfer market power in Liverpool's favour. Liverpool's careful financial planning under FSG is set to be rewarded in record-breaking fashion.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Club World Cup crowds have wildly fluctuated, from swathes of empty seats to 'hostile' atmospheres
MIAMI (AP) — As kickoff approached it was clear — the fans weren't coming. The Club World Cup, soccer's shiny, new competition, has been billed as the event to breathe new life into the world's most popular sport. It began a week ago in the United States, where sports stadiums of monumental capacity and steep tickets prices awaited the rowdy crowds seen at grounds across the world. 'It's like playing football during lockdown,' observed one fan on social media. For days, world governing body FIFA didn't register the attendance for the game between Mamelodi Sundowns and Ulsan HD on its official website. It took until Friday for a figure of 3,412 to be acknowledged on the site, but by rough count, there were less than 1000 fans in the stands as the game got underway. At the other end of the spectrum, more than 80,000 watched Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain vs. Atletico Madrid at the massive Rose Bowl in Los Angeles. The opening week for the monthlong tournament across the U.S. has seen some wildly fluctuating attendances. The Mamelodi Sundowns and Ulsan HD game stands out as the low point so far for FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, who is banking on the Club World Cup becoming one of the most popular and valuable competitions in sport. So sparse was the crowd that the word 'ORLANDO' — spelled out in yellow seats on one of the main stands at Inter&Co Stadium — was almost completely unobstructed. Crowd control stewards stood by the sidelines and monitored vast areas of empty spaces in the 25,500-capacity venue. The home of MLS team Orlando City — among the smallest stadiums chosen to host games for the tournament — was still massively oversized for the match, even with ticket prices falling to $23. A group game between largely unheralded teams from South Africa and South Korea was never likely to be a big seller. And storms, which forced kickoff to be delayed by more than an hour, may have led to no-shows. Still, it was an uncomfortably low turnout and one of three games in the opening week that drew less than 10,000 fans. Not even Chelsea, Messi, MLS can pack Atlanta There were also swathes of empty seats for Chelsea's game against L.A. FC in Atlanta. It was an afternoon kickoff on a weekday, but one of the Premier League's most popular teams vs. an opponent from MLS couldn't manage to fill a third of the 71,000-capacity stadium, with 22,000 fans showing up. 'I think the environment was a bit strange. You know, the stadium was almost empty,' Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca said, and even with Lionel Messi in town for the second game in Atlanta — Inter Miami's win against Porto — the crowd was far from capacity at 31,783. Club World Cup ticket prices Uncertainty over ticket sales had been a point of debate in the build up to the tournament, with prices falling dramatically before the opening game between Miami and Al Ahly last Saturday. An impressive crowd of nearly 61,000 watched that game at Hard Rock Stadium, though it is not known how many paid anywhere near the $349 that tickets were being quoted at in December. As of Tuesday, FIFA said 1.5 million tickets had been sold and more than 340,000 fans had attended the first eight games. Infantino proudly proclaimed the Club World Cup was growing into 'the undisputed pinnacle of global club football.' Kane calls Hard Rock Stadium a 'hostile' scene Numbers in Miami have been good — nothing lower than 55,000 and topping out at a near-capacity 63,587 for Bayern Munich vs. Boca Juniors. Bayern forward Harry Kane described the atmosphere inside a stadium dominated by Boca fans as 'hostile.' Crowds have still come to Miami in a week when the Florida Panthers were playing in the Stanley Cup Final. Boca and Real Madrid fans queued up for hours in sweltering heat after arriving early for games. Largest cup crowd was at the Rose Bowl The biggest crowd of the opening week was 80,619 for PSG vs. Atletico Madrid in L.A. For context, that is just short of the 84,163 who watched the English FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium and well above the 64,327 attendance for the Champions League final — European club soccer's biggest game. World Cup, Champions League comparisons While there was not a sellout game in the opening week, 10 of the first 24 matches have seen crowds in excess of 40,000, for an average of around 36,000. The average for the Champions League last season was just under 46,000, according to soccer data website Transfermarkt, but like-for-like comparisons are difficult, given this is a totally new format bringing club teams from around the world to the U.S. At the 2022 men's World Cup in Qatar there was an average attendance of just under 50,000 per game for the opening week. Of the 20 games played over that period, the highest attendance was 88,103 and all but two of those games had crowds in excess of 40,000. Looking ahead to the World Cup Focus on the Club World Cup has been intense for more than one reason. There is still uncertainty over how much of an appetite there is among fans for another elite soccer tournament and it was unknown how many would be prepared to follow their team to the U.S. According to FIFA, the biggest take up of tickets from abroad was from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Perhaps more significant is what this tournament says about the men's World Cup, which is largely being staged in the U.S. next year. The Club World Cup could be seen as a gauge of how America's interest in soccer has grown since last hosting the planet's biggest sporting event in 1994. In that sense, it's not just about statistics, but optics as well. Which is why FIFA will hope to avoid a repeat of the scenes at Mamelodi Sundowns vs. Ulsan HD. ___
Hamilton Spectator
5 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Club World Cup crowds have wildly fluctuated, from swathes of empty seats to ‘hostile' atmospheres
MIAMI (AP) — As kickoff approached it was clear — the fans weren't coming. The Club World Cup, soccer's shiny, new competition, has been billed as the event to breathe new life into the world's most popular sport. It began a week ago in the United States, where sports stadiums of monumental capacity and steep tickets prices awaited the rowdy crowds seen at grounds across the world. But rows and rows of empty seats inside Orlando's Inter&Co Stadium on Tuesday told another story. 'It's like playing football during lockdown,' observed one fan on social media. For days, world governing body FIFA didn't register the attendance for the game between Mamelodi Sundowns and Ulsan HD on its official website. It took until Friday for a figure of 3,412 to be acknowledged on the site, but by rough count, there were less than 1000 fans in the stands as the game got underway. At the other end of the spectrum, more than 80,000 watched Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain vs. Atletico Madrid at the massive Rose Bowl in Los Angeles. The opening week for the monthlong tournament across the U.S. has seen some wildly fluctuating attendances. Orlando attendance is uncomfortably low The Mamelodi Sundowns and Ulsan HD game stands out as the low point so far for FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, who is banking on the Club World Cup becoming one of the most popular and valuable competitions in sport. So sparse was the crowd that the word 'ORLANDO' — spelled out in yellow seats on one of the main stands at Inter&Co Stadium — was almost completely unobstructed. Crowd control stewards stood by the sidelines and monitored vast areas of empty spaces in the 25,500-capacity venue. The home of MLS team Orlando City — among the smallest stadiums chosen to host games for the tournament — was still massively oversized for the match, even with ticket prices falling to $23. A group game between largely unheralded teams from South Africa and South Korea was never likely to be a big seller. And storms, which forced kickoff to be delayed by more than an hour, may have led to no-shows. Still, it was an uncomfortably low turnout and one of three games in the opening week that drew less than 10,000 fans. Not even Chelsea, Messi, MLS can pack Atlanta There were also swathes of empty seats for Chelsea's game against L.A. FC in Atlanta. It was an afternoon kickoff on a weekday, but one of the Premier League's most popular teams vs. an opponent from MLS couldn't manage to fill a third of the 71,000-capacity stadium, with 22,000 fans showing up. 'I think the environment was a bit strange. You know, the stadium was almost empty,' Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca said, and even with Lionel Messi in town for the second game in Atlanta — Inter Miami's win against Porto — the crowd was far from capacity at 31,783. Club World Cup ticket prices Uncertainty over ticket sales had been a point of debate in the build up to the tournament, with prices falling dramatically before the opening game between Miami and Al Ahly last Saturday. An impressive crowd of nearly 61,000 watched that game at Hard Rock Stadium, though it is not known how many paid anywhere near the $349 that tickets were being quoted at in December. As of Tuesday, FIFA said 1.5 million tickets had been sold and more than 340,000 fans had attended the first eight games. Infantino proudly proclaimed the Club World Cup was growing into 'the undisputed pinnacle of global club football.' Kane calls Hard Rock Stadium a 'hostile' scene Numbers in Miami have been good — nothing lower than 55,000 and topping out at a near-capacity 63,587 for Bayern Munich vs. Boca Juniors. Bayern forward Harry Kane described the atmosphere inside a stadium dominated by Boca fans as 'hostile.' Crowds have still come to Miami in a week when the Florida Panthers were playing in the Stanley Cup Final. Boca and Real Madrid fans queued up for hours in sweltering heat after arriving early for games. Largest cup crowd was at the Rose Bowl The biggest crowd of the opening week was 80,619 for PSG vs. Atletico Madrid in L.A. For context, that is just short of the 84,163 who watched the English FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium and well above the 64,327 attendance for the Champions League final — European club soccer's biggest game. World Cup, Champions League comparisons While there was not a sellout game in the opening week, 10 of the first 24 matches have seen crowds in excess of 40,000, for an average of around 36,000. The average for the Champions League last season was just under 46,000, according to soccer data website Transfermarkt, but like-for-like comparisons are difficult, given this is a totally new format bringing club teams from around the world to the U.S. At the 2022 men's World Cup in Qatar there was an average attendance of just under 50,000 per game for the opening week. Of the 20 games played over that period, the highest attendance was 88,103 and all but two of those games had crowds in excess of 40,000. Looking ahead to the World Cup Focus on the Club World Cup has been intense for more than one reason. There is still uncertainty over how much of an appetite there is among fans for another elite soccer tournament and it was unknown how many would be prepared to follow their team to the U.S. According to FIFA, the biggest take up of tickets from abroad was from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Perhaps more significant is what this tournament says about the men's World Cup, which is largely being staged in the U.S. next year. The Club World Cup could be seen as a gauge of how America's interest in soccer has grown since last hosting the planet's biggest sporting event in 1994. In that sense, it's not just about statistics, but optics as well. Which is why FIFA will hope to avoid a repeat of the scenes at Mamelodi Sundowns vs. Ulsan HD. ___ AP reporters Jackson Castellano in Orlando, Florida, and Allyn Tucker in Atlanta contributed. ___ James Robson is at ___ AP soccer:
