Everything about Le Classique!
Find out all you need to know before kick-off in Week 3 of Ligue 1 between Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille, on Sunday 13 September at 21:00 at the Parc des Princes.
A bit of history...
Le Classique between Paris Saint-Germain - Marseille, Chapter 98! The 100 mark is not far off, something that has only been achieved by 3 clubs so far: Bordeaux (106 matches), Monaco (103 matches) and Lyon (100 matches).
In terms of the direct confrontations, the history books largely favour the club from the capital, with 43 victories, 22 draws and 32 defeats.
Les Rouge et Bleu are on a current unbeaten run of 20 matches (17 wins and 3 draws) against Marseille, since the defeat (0-3) at the Stade Vélodrome on 27 November 2011. Only 3 teams have a worse record than OM: FC Nantes and SCO Angers, with 22 matches without a win, and then AS Saint-Étienne (21 matches).
At the Parc des Princes, the club from the capital haven't been beaten by Les Marseillais since 28 February 2010 (0-3 in the league), that's a run of 13 competitive matches without defeat (11 wins and 1 draw). OM will play their 50th official match on the pitch of the Porte d’Auteuil against PSG, with Les Rouge et Bleu winning 28 of their previous encounters, with 12 draws and 9 defeats.
49 players - a record for Paris Saint-Germain - have worn the shirt of the two clubs: Fabrice Abriel, Jérôme Alonzo, André Luiz, Jocelyn Angloma, William Ayache, Djamel Belmadi, Hatem Ben Arfa, Daniel Bravo, Sarr Boubacar, François Brisson, Zoumana Camara, Lorik Cana, Benoît Cauet, Édouard Cissé, Patrick Colleter, Lassana Diarra, Stéphane Dalmat, Marcel De Falco, Frédéric Déhu, Jean-Pierre Destrumelle, Kaba Diawara, Jean Djorkaeff, Jean-Pierre Dogliani, Fabrice Fiorèse, Laurent Fournier, Bruno Germain, Xavier Gravelaine, Gabriel Heinze, Thierry Laurey, Jean-Louis Leonetti, Yvon Le Roux, Jérôme Leroy, Claude Lowitz, Peter Luccin, Peguy Luyindula, Claude Makelele, Florian Maurice, Modeste M’Bami, Michel N’Gom, Bruno Ngotty, Pascal Nouma, Jacki Novi, Ilija Pantelic, Bernard Pardo, Cyril Pouget, Alain Roche, Jean-Pierre Tokoto, George Weah and Daniel Xuereb.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the top scorer for Les Rouge et Bleu against Marseille with 11 goals, ahead of Edinson Cavani (7 goals) and Pedro Miguel Pauleta (6 goals).
The stakes...
After the defeat at Lens (0-1) in their first game of the season, Paris Saint-Germain need to get back onto winning ways. At the Parc des Princes, Les Rouge et Bleu are on an unbeaten run of 14 matches (13 wins, 1 draw) since 25 September 2019 (defeat against Reims 0-2) and 50 goals scored, that's more than 3.5 times the average goals scored per match ratio.
The keys to success...
The Paris defence will need to be uncompromising against the Marseille attack, who are rarely in form at the Parc des Princes: just 2 goals scored in their last 11 outings in the capital...