Southerners against Northerners. The pragmatists against the entertainers. Last season’s champions against a team who haven’t won the title since 1954. This year’s race for the Ligue 1 title will come down to a straight fight between Lille and Marseille.
There had been five teams still in the race. Or were there four? No one was ever really sure whether Paris Saint-Germain were in or out; a goalless draw at home to Lorient confirmed the answer was ‘no’.
And so the next team to fall was Frederic Antonetti’s battling Rennes, who drew 0-0 at home to Auxerre, summing up the limitations of a team who, though functional and well organised, lack the firepower up front to win enough games to truly challenge.
Then came Lyon, though they were not meant to fall from the reckoning. 2-0 ahead going into injury time, Les Gones were writing their own script, before their resilient opponents Nice ripped up 90 minutes of good work. First Pape Diakhate gave away a needless penalty, being sent off in the process, and Nice were back in the game at 2-1, for all 180 seconds that remained. But Renato Civelli headed the ball home, ending Lyon’s title hopes for this most unpredictable of Ligue 1 campaigns. It summed up the season quite nicely for Claude Puel’s side: Able to control possession and create chances, yet a porous defence has been their undoing.
Thus it was that Rudi Garcia’s Lille moved seven points clear with a comfortable home win against Caen, Moussa Sow scoring his 20th goal of the campaign, making him the most prolific goalscorer at this stage of the Ligue 1 season since 2002.
After Lille had cruised to victory, it was the turn of current champions Marseille to see if they could keep pace with the leaders. A hard fought 1-0 win at Lens courtesy of Benoit Cheyrou’s cleverly taken strike meant Didier Deschamps’ side could, and now they lie four points behind Lille.
It was always the case that if anyone was going to keep pace with Lille, it would be the reigning Ligue 1 champions. Their win over Lens was their seventh by a single goal margin since the turn of the year (in just 10 games, too), but underlines the damage Marseille did to their title challenge in the early weeks of the season, winning just one of their first five matches.
It is their mentality which has enabled Les Phocéens to keep plugging away at the top whilst more brittle rivals (or in the case of Rennes, attacking impotence) have fallen away. But their main problem is that Lille keep winning.
That win over Caen was Les Dogues’ fourth in a row, which makes this their best run of form all season, belying their status as the title race novices. Though three of their next four games are away from home, the most testing during their run-in will be in the final two weeks of the season, when they travel to Paris Saint-Germain and host Rennes. But with a four point gap, Lille may even be able to afford to drop points in the capital and still win the title.
For Marseille, a trip to Lyon at the start of May looms, which will be their biggest test between now and the end of the campaign, though Deschamps’ side also face a tough game at Montpellier just days before meeting the same opponents in the League Cup final this month. But Lille also have cup commitments; and a semi-final with Nice in the French Cup will demand their attention.
Where Garcia’s men may have an advantage is the unpredictable genius that is Eden Hazard. The Belgian’s talents are well known and admired, with the playmaker’s skills providing the impetus behind the club’s surge towards the top of the table at the end of 2010. Hazard’s opening goal against Marseille last month, a wonderfully crafted left foot finish from well outside the area, was world class, and the kind of individual brilliance that title winning sides need if they are to win the big games, or those in which they aren’t quite at their best. It was a game which, it might have been reasoned, last season’s champions would battle to victory, particularly at home. Yet it was the brilliance of Hazard which arguably was Marseille’s undoing, and Lille demonstrated their winning mentality with a last minute winner from Pierre-Alain Frau.
Yet in spite of this form, Lille refuse to publicly declare their candidacy in this title race, and continue to insist that they are only intent on qualifying for the Champions League. It has prompted the start of the mind games between the sides, with Marseille’s Eduoard Cisse the first to crack, when he criticised the side from the north for a perceived faux modesty.
"We don’t buy it. Nobody buys it. They want the title, but they are removing a bit of pressure off their shoulders. If I were in their shoes, objectively, I can’t say that I’m not contending for the title.”
But question marks remain over Lille’s ability to remain consistent until the season’s end. Les Dogues have fallen away towards the end in previous campaigns. Last year, continually fielding the same players left them exhausted as the title race reached its climax. This season, a rotation system as well as Garcia’s decision to field weakened sides in the Europa League may just keep the club fresh and at full fitness going into these tense final weeks. Marseille on the other hand, have battled to three wins in a row to remain in the hunt.
Whilst predicting its outcome is still impossible, the Ligue 1 picture is at least becoming clear. Before it was the most unpredictable league in Europe, the most exciting title race in years. Yet in one weekend, it suddenly became the most conventional.
