Everything on Paris-Lille!

A little bit of history...

Paris Saint-Germain and Lille will play for the 95th time in competitive matches on Saturday. History favours Les Parisiens, with 39 victories to their name, 25 draws and 30 defeats. 

Les Rouge et Bleu have gone 24 matches without defeat against Lille at the Parc des Princes (16 victories and 8 draws), since the defeat on 27 April 1996 (0-1) in the league.

Only three clubs have been on the receiving end of a worse record: Strasbourg (34 matches, ongoing), Bastia (31 matches, ongoing) and Saint-Étienne, with 26 matches without a win from 1974 until 2000.

26 players have played for both clubs: Jocelyn Angloma, Mathieu Bodmer, François Brisson, Bernard Bureau, Yohan Cabaye, Aliou Cissé, Lucas Digne, Oumar Dieng, Pierre Dréossi, Pierre-Alain Frau, Idrissa Gueye, Jonathan Ikoné, Mickaël Landreau, Bernard Lama, Christophe Landrin, Edvin Murati, Pascal Nouma, Bernard Pardo, Christian Perez, Stéphane Pichot, Jacky Planchard, Thierry Rabat, David Rozehnal, Younousse Sankharé, Amara Simba and Timothy Weah. Note: Mike Maignan and Boubakary Soumaré both came trough the ranks at Paris Saint-Germain but never played a first team match for the club from the capital.

Dominique Rocheteau is Paris Saint-Germain's top scorer against Lille with 8 goals scored, including 6 at the Parc des Princes. He's ahead of Safet Susic (7 goals), Edinson Cavani and Lucas (5 goals) and then Jean-Claude Bras, Kylian Mbappé, Neymar Jr and Pedro Miguel Pauleta (4 goals).

4 of Paris Saint-Germain's five quickest goals in the top flight have been scored against Lille: Maxwell at the Parc des Princes (26 seconds on 25 April 2015), Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the North (27 seconds on 2 September 2012), Nordine Kourichi's own goal (45 seconds on 22 October 1983) and Safet Susic (48 seconds on 20 October 1990), the final two being scored at the home of the Les Rouge et Bleu.

The STAKES...

It's a battle for the top between Paris Saint-Germain and Lille, as both sides sit at the top of the league with 63 points. Les Parisiens are currently leaders thanks to a better goal difference. Since the 2012-2013 season, the club from the capital have always taken home the trophy (on six occasions) when sitting in first place after 30 matches.

Paris Saint-Germain will want to bring to an end their current home run: Les Rouge et Bleu have suffered two defeats in their last Ligue 1 matches at the Parc des Princes against Monaco (0-2 on 21/02/2021) and Nantes (1-2 on 14/03/2021). They haven't suffered three consecutive home defeats since the 2007-2008 season (Bordeaux 0-2, Rennes 1-3, Lyon 2-3).

The keys to the match...

Kylian Mbappé is the man in form for Paris Saint-Germain in recent matches, with 12 goals scored in his last 9 matches for Les Rouge et Bleu.

In Ligue 1, with 84 goals scored for the club from the capital, the World Champion is only one goal off Mustapha Dahleb's record (85 goals) and could make it into Les Rouge et Bleu's top three behind Edinson Cavani (138 goals) and Ibrahimovic (113 goals).

Marquinhos could play in his 200th Ligue 1 match for the club. Just one Brazilian has bettered that record for Paris: Thiago Silva with 204 matches played.

Paris Saint-Germain will also be looking to Angel Di Maria, who continues his quest for his 100th assist for the club in competitive matches, which would bring him one step closer to the club record held by Safet Susic (103 assists, from 1982 until 1991).