Ligue 1 is considered to be one of the roughest European League. Many teams are known for playing aggressive and intimidating. On 13th September, the Ligue 1 Clasico, Paris Saint-Germain vs. Olympique de Marseille, was held, which got out of hands in the last few minutes of the game. The ‘Le Classique’ is the match between PSG and Marseille. There is a big rivalry between both teams. At certain times, they even keep mocking each other. At the time of the Champions League final last season, where PSG was playing against Bayern Munich, the Marseille team did not support the Ligue 1 side and instead wished that they lose the finals so that they can be the only French team to win the Cup.

After PSG lost the finals, Marseille even celebrated, and their players took it to their social media to show how happy they were that PSG lost. This Clasico was PSG’s second match of the season. They were not in their best form as many players still had to be kept out of the squad after testing positive for coronavirus. Let us see what happened in the match and how things got heated up.

Match Summary: Paris Saint-Germain vs Olympique de Marseille

The ‘Le Classique’ is said to be the most awaited match of the league because of the rivalry between both the teams. They have faced each other many times, but things got out of hands yesterday. Neymar, Di Maria, and Paredes were back in the squad after recovering from COVID-19. But, some important players like Kylian Mbappe, Mauro Icardi, Keylor Navas, and Marquinhos were still out of the team. The match started, and Paris was keeping good possession of the ball as always.

But, the possession game did not affect Marseille as they were putting tremendous pressure on PSG. PSG had some attempts, especially the attempt from Marco Verratti, which was wonderfully saved by the Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandanda. In the 31st minute of the game, Thauvin scored the only goal of the game for Marseille. Even though Paris had more attempts and more possession of the ball, they were not able to find the net throughout the entire game. The score was 1-0 in Marseille’s favor after fulltime.

How did the match get so heated up?

Marseille won the game, but the highlight of the game started after the 94th minute. Alvaro Gonzalez was protecting the ball to go out of play, and they won a goal kick after the ball was cleared from PSG. Neymar pushed Alvaro in frustration. After this, both the players were seen verbally confronting each other, and that is when the heat started. Mandana took the goal kick, and that is when Benedetto pushed Paredes from behind, and Paredes lost his balance, which made him fall to the ground. Instead of cooling things down, Lavyin Kurzawa and Jordan Amavi started fighting with each other. This took place for at least 3 minutes, and the players were calmed down.

Leandro Paredes and Dario Benedetto, who had already received a yellow card, were shown their second yellow for their misbehavior, and both were sent off. Kurzawa and Amavi also received red cards. After this, the referee took it to VAR to see Neymar lightly punching Alvaro at the back of his head. Consequently, he was shown a red card too. On his way out, Neymar said to the officials that Alvaro made some racist comments against him and Di Maria, which made him lose his cool. This thing is not confirmed yet as we cannot hear the conversations between players on the field. But, Neymar sounded pretty serious about it. Now, if it is found out to be accurate, then stringent action will be taken against Alvaro Gonzalez.

VAR pegar a minha “agressão” é mole … agora eu quero ver pegar a imagem do racista me chamando de “MONO HIJO DE PUTA” (macaco filha da puta)… isso eu quero ver!

E aí? CARRETILHA vc me pune.. CASCUDO sou expulso… e eles? E aí ? — Neymar Jr (@neymarjr) September 13, 2020

What did Neymar say about the entire incident?

After the match, Neymar posted on his twitter that Alvaro called him a monkey, followed up by a rude word. Neymar also tweeted that the only regrets he has are that he did not kick Alvaro on his face at that time. The Brazilian even called out the VAR system and questioned why they did not consider to take a look at the conversation between both the players when he was racially abused. There is no room for racism in football. We hope that strict action is taken against the player if the allegations are proven. At the end of the game, Marseille took away the 3 points from their victory.