Paris (dpa)
Paris Saint-Germain strengthened its lead in the French Football League ranking table, after it achieved a difficult 1-2 victory over its guest Strasbourg yesterday evening in the sixteenth stage of the competition.
The rest of the stage matches resulted in Ajaccio 1-0 at home to Angers, Monaco 3-2 at Auxerre, Lille 2-0 at Clermont, and Lyon 4-2 at Brest, while Troyes tied with Nantes 0-0.
Paris Saint-Germain, who played its first meeting after the competition resumed its activities after stopping for about a month and a half due to the World Cup matches in Qatar, rose to 44 points in the lead, achieving its 14th victory in the tournament this season and its sixth in a row.
On the other hand, Strasbourg’s balance, which suffered its seventh loss against a single victory and 8 draws, stopped at 11 points in the nineteenth (penultimate) place. Saint-Germain opened the scoring through Marquinhos in the 14th minute, but the same player equalized for Strasbourg with a reverse goal, which he scored in the 51st minute. .
The French capital team challenged the numerical shortage in its ranks, after French international star Kylian Mbappe scored the valuable winning goal in the sixth minute of calculated time instead of lost from a penalty kick. Monaco returned to the path of victories that it missed in the last stage of the tournament, after it snatched an exciting 3/2 victory from the stadium of its host Auxerre, and the balance of Monaco, who achieved its ninth victory against 3 draws and 4 defeats in the tournament this season, rose to 30 points in fifth place, While Auxerre’s balance stopped at 13 points in the eighteenth place (third from the bottom). Auxerre scored through Mbaye Niang in the 30th minute from a penalty kick, before Wissam Ben Yedder equalized for Monaco in the third minute of calculated time instead of lost for the first half from a penalty kick as well. In the second half, rising player Elis Ben Saghir scored the second goal for Monaco in the 58th minute, but friendly fire awarded Auxerre a draw, after Youssef Fofana of Monaco scored a reverse goal for the landlords in the 68th minute. Ben Saghir continued his brilliance in the match, after scoring the third goal for Monaco and his goal. The second personal in the 85th minute, to give the three points to the guest team. This victory comes to reconcile Monaco with its fans, with the resumption of the competition, which was suspended for about a month and a half due to the World Cup in Qatar, after it was frustrated by the team’s loss by the same result against its host, Olympique de Marseille, in its last match in the tournament. Ajaccio deepened the wounds of its guest, Angers, in the competition, after beating it 1-0.