In Sunday’s Classique, Paris Saint-Germain defeated Marseille 2-1, with Neymar and Kylian Mbappe securing the victory.
In a battle between Ligue 1’s top two teams that was far from classic, all three goals were scored before halftime.
Duje Caleta-Car had cancelled out Neymar’s opening before Mbappe restored parity from the penalty spot, with VAR disallowing what Marseille thought was an equalizer late on.
PSG’s excellent record continues after Mauricio Pochettino’s side won their last two matches by scores of 5-1 and 6-1, respectively, and moves them closer to reclaiming the Ligue 1 crown.
The game’s opening goal came in the 12th minute, when Neymar looped a volley over the charging goalie after Marco Verratti delivered a brilliant throughball.
Marseille drew parity 19 minutes later after Gianluigi Donnarumma was unable to clear Dimitri Payet’s corner, which pin-balled about the six-yard box, giving Caleta-Car the opportunity to push it in.
PSG retook the lead deep into first-half stoppage time when a VAR assessment revealed that a hopeful chipped pass from Neymar had collided with the arm of Valentin Rongier, with Mbappe hitting the resulting penalty powerfully into the bottom-left corner.
In the 76th minute, Messi and Mbappe connected superbly, but the offside flag denied PSG once more. However, the hosts were shortly the beneficiaries of a close call on the other end.
William Saliba tucked home a superb free-kick from Payet to seemingly equalize for Marseille, only for VAR to identify the defender had stepped offside.
Source: livescore news
