{"id":49341,"date":"2026-04-27T12:04:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=49341"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:04:39","slug":"marseille-see-champions-league-chance-slip-further-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=49341","title":{"rendered":"Marseille see Champions League chance slip further away"},"content":{"rendered":"
Marseille saw the prospect of Champions League football slip further away as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Nice at the Velodrome on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Marseille hierarchy hoped a verbal blast from sporting director Medhi Benatia following a pitiful 2-0 defeat to Lorient last weekend would fire the players to a desperately-needed three points to relaunch their bid for a top-four place in Ligue 1.<\/p>\n

Captain Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg put them ahead with a diving header in the second half, but Elye Wahi grabbed a point for the visitors with a ‘panenka’ penalty in the 88th minute.<\/p>\n

To rub salt into Marseille’s wounds, Wahi was one of their high-profile signings in 2024 before leaving the club after just six months.<\/p>\n

The draw leaves Marseille sixth and staring at a financially damaging failure to qualify for Europe’s top club competition.<\/p>\n

The top three teams in France earn Champions League places while the fourth-placed club goes into the qualifying rounds.<\/p>\n

Marseille are four points behind Lyon and Lille, who both have 57 points, and three behind Rennes.<\/p>\n

Lille secured a hard-fought 1-0 victory away to Paris FC on Sunday to stay firmly in contention for an automatic Champions League place.<\/p>\n

Belgian forward Matias Fernandez-Pardo converted a 26th-minute penalty after a foul on Romain Perraud, sending former Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper Kevin Trapp the wrong way with his spot kick.<\/p>\n

The win puts Lille level on 57 points with third-placed Lyon, who beat Auxerre 3-2 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

However Lille will rue their narrow victory as they now have the same goal difference as Lyon, but the run-in favours Lille who will face lower-table clubs Le Havre and Auxerre.<\/p>\n

Lyon, on the other hand, still have to play Rennes, who have their own European aspirations.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Metz staved off relegation for at least another week with an entertaining 4-4 draw away to Le Havre.<\/p>\n

Gauthier Hein was Metz’s saviour, scoring in the 85th minute to bring the scores level having earlier netted from the penalty spot.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marseille saw the prospect of Champions League football slip further away as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Nice at the Velodrome on Sunday. The Marseille hierarchy hoped a verbal blast from sporting director Medhi Benatia following a pitiful 2-0 defeat to Lorient last weekend would fire the players to a desperately-needed three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}