Lyon nearly out of Champions League race
Reuters - Sunday 06 May 2012, 21:18
* PSG fight back to beat Valenciennes
* Level with Montpellier who play on Monday
(Recasts after PSG win)
By Julien Pretot
PARIS, May 6 (Reuters) - Paris St Germain recovered from a
disastrous start to move level with Montpellier on points at the
top of Ligue 1 with a dramatic 4-3 victory at Valenciennes on
Sunday.
PSG were 2-0 down after 11 minutes but goals by Nene,
Maxwell, Blaise Matuidi and Jeremy Menez lifted them to 73
points with two games left and they lead Montpellier, who play
their game in hand against Stade Rennes on Monday, on goal
difference.
Champions Lille, who are third on 68 points, still have an
outside chance of winning the title going into their home game
against Caen on Monday.
Olympique Lyon lost any real hope of securing a Champions
League spot next season when they were held to a 1-1 home draw
by Stade Brest that left them eight points behind Lille with
three games left.
At Valenciennes, the PSG defence cracked twice in the
opening 11 minutes but Carlo Ancelotti's side were brilliant up
front and eventually sealed a much-waited win.
Valenciennes went ahead on eight minutes when Vincent
Aboubakar netted with a deflected crossed shot.
Three minutes later, Salvatore Sirigu failed to block
Abaoubakar's low shot and Remi Gomis poked the ball home to make
it 2-0.
It took PSG only three muinutes to hit back as Nene
collected a fine chip from Jeremy Menez in the area to fire past
Nicolas Penneteau.
Nene set up Maxwell with a through pass five minutes from
the interval for his fellow Brazilian to beat Penneteau with a
low, angled shot.
PSG went 3-2 up on the stroke of halftime when Matuidi
latched on to Javier Pastore's defence-splitting pass. Menez
wrapped up victory shortly before the hour by curling a low shot
into the net after being set up by Nene.
Renaud Cohade pulled one back for Valenciennes with a direct
free kick on 85 minutes.
Earlier, Lyon's hopes of playing in the Champions League for
the 13th season in a row were almost certainly crushed at Stade
Brest.
"It's almost over (for third place) now," centre back Cris
told French TV Channel Foot +.
"We played well in the first half, we had a lot of chances
but we sank physically after the break."
Lyon relied on the brilliant Yoann Gourcuff, who produced a
fine performance nine days before France coach Laurent Blanc
unveils his preliminary squad of home-based players for the
European championship finals.
Gourcuff, who looked to have regained his touch, opened the
scoring with a diving header from a Mouhamadou Dabo cross eight
minutes before the interval.
He then set up Lisandro Lopez with a fine curling cross from
the right, only for the Argentine striker to fluff his volley.
Lorenzi, however, equalised 15 minutes from time when he
fired home from close range from a corner.
(Editing by Ed Osmond)