This past week saw the Champions League and Europa League groups stages come to an end with mixed fortunes for the French sides in both competitions.
Champions League
Three French teams participated in this year’s edition of football’s premier European club competition; Paris Saint-Germain, Marseille and Rennes.
Finalists in 2019, PSG made heavy weather of their group which contained Leipzig, Manchester United and Istanbul Basaksehir, eventually winning the group in the final match, beating the Turkish side 5-1.
They started off their campaign with a disappointing home defeat to Manchester United with Marcus Rashford again scoring a late winner, as he had done from the penalty spot to knock Les Parisiens out on away goals in 2019, but they bounced back by beating Basaksehir.
Another defeat though to Leipzig put a spanner in the works but they gained revenge in the return match with a Neymar penalty.
An impressive 3-1 win at Old Trafford then set up qualification to be confirmed against the Turkish side.
However, this game was not without controversy as after 20 minutes of the initial match, players from both sides walked off the pitch after reports of racism from the fourth official towards Basaksehir assistant manager Pierre Webo.
The following night, the match resumed with a Neymar hat-trick and a double from Kylian Mbappe.
Both players set personal records with their goals at the Parc des Princes as Neymar became the first player in European Cup and Champions League history to score 20 goals with two different clubs (FC Barcelona and PSG) while at 21 years & 11 months, Mbappe became the youngest player to reach 20 goals in the Champions League, breaking Lionel Messi’s record.
Marseille had rather differing fortunes however as, despite their strong domestic form, they collected just three points from a win over Olympiakos as they finished bottom of a group with the Greek side, Manchester City and Porto.
Andre Villas-Boas’ side started off poorly, losing at Olympiakos and to Manchester City without scoring before a 3-0 defeat at Porto effectively sealed their fate by the halfway mark.
This defeat to Porto also ensured they set an unwanted record for most consecutive Champions League defeats (13) beating R.S.C. Anderlecht’s record on 12.
A home defeat to the Portuguese outfit continued their woes before they finally stopped the rot with a home triumph over the Greeks thanks to two Dimitri Payet penalties but typically they finished the group with a defeat to Manchester City.
It was a similar story for Rennes, playing in their maiden Champions League campaign, who picked up a solitary point against Krasnodar and scored just three goals.
They lost two of their first three games, away to Sevilla and Chelsea having picked up that point against Krasnodar.
Two narrow defeats were to follow against the English and Russian sides with the former particularly galling as, having levelled with five minutes left, they conceded an injury-time winner to Olivier Giroud.
In disappointing fashion, Julien Stephan’s men finished with a 3-1 home loss to Sevilla.
Marseille and Rennes’ campaigns were summed up by being the only sides in the Champions League in 2020 not to score from open play – with Marseille scoring two penalties and Rennes matching them as well as scoring from a corner.
Europa League
The second-tier European competition also offered differing fortunes for Lille OSC and OGC Nice with the former progressing and the latter disappointing.
Lille started off impressively with a 4-1 win at 10-man Sparta Prague, Yusuf Yazici grabbing a hat-trick before coming back from two goals down to draw against Celtic.
A second successive away treble from Yazici in the San Siro against AC Milan secured a famous win before the points were shared in the return match.
Their place in the last 32 was sealed with a win over Sparta thanks to a Jonathan Bamba brace with their campaign finishing with defeat at Celtic.
For Nice, warning signs that they could be in for a tough European adventure came in their first game when they were thrashed 6-2 at Bayer Leverkusen.
However, they bounced back with a welcome clean sheet and three points against Hapoel Be’er Sheva but their fate was sealed as they lost back-to-back games to Slavia Prague.
A miserable campaign for Patrick Vieira was complete when he was sacked after a home reverse against Leverkusen, their fifth consecutive defeat with the club also languishing in 11th place in Ligue 1.
The final game of their European campaign ended with another loss to Hapoel and it does not look like Nice will be making a return to foreign shores in 2021.
A tally of just three points meant Nice became the fourth French club to end a Europa League campaign with three points or less after Marseille (1 – 2018/19), Bordeaux (3 – 2013/14) and Rennes (3 – 2011/12).
Champions League Draw
Barcelona v Paris Saint-Germain
First legs: 16, 17, 23 and 24 February
Second legs: 9, 10, 16, 17 March
Europa League Draw
Lille v Ajax
First legs: 18 February
Second legs: 25 February
