This season, Marseille played in the group stage of the Champions League, but for the next one, nothing is certain. There are fewer and fewer options for the famous club from the south of France, and they cannot blame anyone but themselves for this situation. Only the first two places in Ligue 1 guarantee the group stages of the Champions League, and Marseille lost the opportunity to be second twice: They lost to their direct rivals Lens three weeks ago, and tonight they all but lost a chance to catch them with a defeat from Lille 1-2. If he had won, Igor Tudor’s team would have overtaken Lens, at least for the evening, and transferred the psychological pressure to the second-placed team ahead of Sunday’s visit to Lorient. But the club basically shot himself in the foot and made it difficult to reach second place.
Everything seemed ideal for the visitors when after half an hour, Ruslan Malynovski – a surprising starter before Alexis Sanchez – assisted Jonathan Clauss, and the right winger (who came from Lens this season) scored his first goal after eight months. But Lille never gave up, especially not at home, where he combined 15 games without defeat, which had not happened since 2009 when Eden Hazard played for this club… Rudy Garcia was sitting on the bench then, and it seems that and the current team, led by coach Paulo Fonseca progressed to that level. Especially if it is known that the turnaround happened in less than 25 minutes. First, Pau Lopes brought down Carlos Beleba, and Jonathan David converted the penalty into an equalizer with the 50th goal in Ligue 1, and then the second striker, Jonathan Bamba, scored on a pass from Fonseca’s wildcard from the bench, the experienced Remy Cabella. Meanwhile, Tudor brought on Sanchez, the Chilean who scored a goal, but was overruled by VAR as it was 1-1, and Lille’s fourth consecutive home win moved up to the fifth place, worthy of qualifying for the Conference League.