AS Monaco is getting closer to direct qualification for the group stage of the next Champions League. The Principality club beat Clermont football (4-1) during the 32nd day (out of 34) of the French championship, Saturday May 4, at the Louis II stadium. It now has a five and six point lead over Brest and Lille, who have a game in hand.
On paper, this meeting between the second and the last in the ranking could seem unbalanced. But Ligue 1 is a particularly homogeneous and confusing championship. Monaco looks like a colossus with feet of clay with its fiery offensive quartet and a crumbly defensive system. For its part, Clermont is a red lantern with the merit of producing play and which has held PSG in check twice this season (0-0 and 1-1).
No surprise, therefore, to see a very open match. At the half-hour mark, Clermontois Muhammed Cham responded to Takumi Minamino's opening score (1-1). The Auvergnats, however, were quickly cooled by an achievement from the Swiss Breel Embolo, who missed a large part of the season due to a knee injury.
Captain Wissam Ben Yedder will then give more relief to his team's success, ultimately logical, by scoring a double, with the help of the Japanese Minamino (final score 4-1). Monaco thus regains the taste of victory, a week after its defeat in Lyon (3-2).
“In the second period, I think there is physical and moral fatigue [in our team], said Florent Ogier, defender of Clermont, at the microphone of Prime Video. When you have to run behind the score all year long, at some point your bodies give up. However, we want…”
From now on, Clermont's destiny in Ligue 1 hangs by a thread. In the event of a victory for FC Metz against Stade Rennes this Saturday evening, the Auvergnats would be officially relegated to Ligue 2. This scenario was made possible by the victory of Havre AC at the start of the afternoon.
Lacking success in the previous six matches, the Normans were under pressure when they hosted RC Strasbourg at the Océane stadium. And it was two players trained at the club, Josué Casimir and Yassine Kechta, 22 years old each, who paved the way to success, the first delivering the assists for two headed goals from the Franco-Moroccan.
If Strasbourg's Frédéric Guilbert reduced the gap at the end of the match, the goal of Le Havre's deliverance came from André Ayew, celebrated by all his partners, at the end of added time (3-1 victory).
Questioned at the end of the match on Prime Video, Josué Casimir spoke of “relief”. “We know it’s not over,” he added, aware that there are still two matches to play.
Guaranteed not to finish in one of the last two places, synonymous with direct relegation, Strasbourg still remains concerned by the 16th, that of play-off, before finding a direct competitor, FC Metz, for a derby which promises to be electric during the next day.
FC Nantes, which travels to Brest during the last match of the evening this Saturday, is the sixth team engaged in this tight fight for survival.
