Around Europe: Marseille, like rest of Ligue 1, no more a challenge to PSG

As Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille prepare to face each other in France's biggest rivalry, Ian Hawkey looks at the continuously widening gap between the Qatar-backed club and the rest.

The record for biggest points difference in a Ligue 1 season between first and second was 17 by Lyon in 2007. Paris Saint-Germain currently hold a 22 point lead. Yoan Valat / EPA

It still calls itself the biggest domestic fixture in France, the closest thing to a collision of two superheavyweights in the Ligue 1 calendar.

It still has its old ferocity off the field, which is why visiting supporters from Paris Saint-Germain are under severe restriction for Sunday's trip by the league leaders to Marseille.

And, yes, the two major football clubs from the country’s two largest cities still boast the largest supporter-bases in France.

But otherwise, it is barely less a David versus Goliath clash than any other which the gigantically resourced PSG take on in the top flight of French football.

Here is one illustration of the financial gap. PSG have twice in the past four transfer windows plundered the superwealthy English Premier League to secure record-breaking expensive players for their own ambitions.

They spent almost €170 million (Dh696.5m) on prising David Luiz from Chelsea and Angel di Maria from Manchester United.

Marseille, by stark contrast, have just crossed the English channel to reinforce their mid-table squad.

They came back with Steven Fletcher, on loan from relegation-threatened Sunderland.

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Fletcher is nonetheless being presented as a marquee signing, a target man in the British tradition. The tough, rugged Scotland international will complement Michy Batshuayi, the club’s leading scorer, up front and perhaps to lead a late assault on the top three positions in the table, and entry into next season’s Uefa Champions League.

Marseille are currently eighth, five points behind Nice, in third, with 14 matches of the campaign left.

The idea of anybody interrupting PSG’s progress to a fourth successive title faded early in the current season. The Parisiens’ midweek win over Lorient was the club’s 33rd successive domestic match unbeaten, which stretches back to last season, with their last defeat coming 11 months ago when they were beaten 3-2 by Bordeaux.

On the horizon is not simply a wrapping-up of the title well in time for PSG to concentrate, they hope, on bettering a recent record of eliminations before the semi-finals of the Uefa Champions League, where they meet Chelsea at the last-16 stage later this month, but other records. There is the 21-year record of 33 matches unbeaten within a single Ligue 1 season.

There is their own landmark of 89 points in a league term, set two years ago, for which another 24 points would suffice.

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There is the record margin between first and second in France’s top flight, set by Lyon in 2007 when the gap stood at 17 points. PSG are currently 22 ahead of second-place Monaco.

These serial muscle-flexers from the capital need not to be too daunted by a trip to the most hostile of French arenas, either, even without much noise from their own followers to aid them at Marseille’s Velodrome.

Marseille, who have stabilised since the coach under whom they began the season, Marcelo Bielsa, resigned after one match to be replaced by Spaniard Michel, have struggled to win at home.

“It should be our strength, playing in front our own fans,” remarked Marseille midfielder Remy Cabella. “It is hard to explain why it hasn’t been.”

PSG can extend the run of Marseille’s home matches without a win to 10 tomorrow.

“It’s as if, at certain points, the team develops a mental block, starts losing the ball, getting heavy-legged and nervous,” Michel said.

His side do have a stoic tendency to pick up points one at a time, which has kept them in the upper half of the table — Marseille have not lost in the league since early November — but also a feeling it might not take too much for them to stride up the table.

And to wound the old enemy, in France’s ‘classique’, still represents an extra motivation.

“Paris is the El Dorado of our football,” Marseille’s Nicolas Nkoulou said. “We don’t have the same means. But we’ll battle on with our own weapons.”

PLAYER TO WATCH — COLIN KAZIM-RICHARDS

The Turkish footballer is now primed with trying to galvanise Celtic, the latest chapter in a career that has seen him play in leagues across Europe.

Family background

Kazim-Richards, who joined Celtic from Feyenoord at the end of the transfer window, is an East Londoner by birth, though his maternal side of the family have a Turkish-Cypriot background. Having risen through various English clubs to the Premier League, where he played for Sheffield United, he was called up to represent Turkey, for whom he qualified through his mother’s family.

Istanbul chance

Two months after his debut for Turkey’s under-21s in 2007, the striker signed for Fenerbahce and was scoring in a Uefa Champions League quarter-final first leg win, against Chelsea in the spring of his first season. That summer he was with Turkey at Euro 2008, where they made the last four.

Fenerbahce dispute

Kazim-Richards’ hard work with his back to goal were good value for Fenerbahce until he clashed with club management in 2010, being sent off in one Istanbul derby that season, against Besiktas, and arguing with Fener fans in another.

On the move

In the next three years he would switch clubs four times. Briefly back at Fenerbahce, he moved to Galatasaray. From there he went on loan to Olympiakos and then to Blackburn Rovers for a season before returning to Turkey with Bursaspor. He then joined Feyenoord, initially on loan and then in a permanent deal.

Reputation

A falling out with a Dutch journalist was the catalyst for his move from Feyenoord to Celtic, and the Glasgow team’s manager Ronny Deila acknowledged his new signing had a reputation. “All good players sometimes have a special personality,” he said before Kazim-Richards made his debut as a substitute in midweek in the loss to Aberdeen.

GAME OF THE WEEK — BAYER LEVERKUSEN v BAYERN MUNICH

Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola has shrugged off suggestions of a potential conflict of interest after signing with Premier League’s Manchester City for next season, saying he was quite capable of multitasking.

Guardiola, who won back-to-back Bundesliga titles with Bayern and is on course for a third after joining in 2013, agreed to a three-year contract with City this week.

Although he is chasing a treble with Bayern this season he will also need to plan for City’s next campaign.

“I am like a woman,” Guardiola told reporters when asked specifically about the issue of conflict of interest on Friday. “I can do things simultaneously. I can control both situations.”

He said he would talk about the City deal once he was in England.

“I cannot say something every week about it,” said Guardiola, who rejected a contract extension with Bayern last year. “It is another four months and for me it is not a problem. Newspapers can continue attacking and I will continue doing my job.”

The Spaniard can still leave on a high and clinch a treble in his final season at Bayern, with the Munich club travelling to fourth-placed Bayer Leverkusen tonight.

Bayern have dominated the season thus far, losing only one of their first 19 games, and they have only dropped five points in total.

They have an eight-point lead over nearest challengers Borussia Dortmund, while Leverkusen need the points to help in their bid to qualify for the Uefa Champions League next season.

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