PARIS: Monaco and Olympique Lyonnais secured Champions League spots with victories in the final round of Ligue 1 matches as Olympique de Marseille’s season ended in disappointment on Saturday.
Monaco finished runners-up to Paris St Germain after their 3-0 win at Troyes sent their opponents down to Ligue 2, while Lyon ended third after coming from behind to beat Nice 3-2, thanks to Memphis Depay’s treble.
Fourth-placed Marseille, who lost to Atletico Madrid in the Europa League final on Wednesday, beat visiting Amiens 2-1 but it was not enough to put them on the podium.
They end up with 77 points, one behind Lyon, while Monaco have 80.
But PSG, who had already been crowned, finished well clear on 93 points after a 0-0 draw at Caen that kept the Normandy side in the elite.
In the absence of Neymar, Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappe, PSG coach Unai Emery gave Timothy Weah George Weah’s 18-year-old son his first start in Caen.
Marseille will play in the Europa League, along with fifth-placed Stade Rennais and sixth-placed Girondins de Bordeaux, who respectively drew 1-1 at home to Montpellier and won 4-0 at Metz.
Nice missed out on the Europa League with Saturday’s defeat, and coach Lucien Favre announced he was leaving the club after the game.
Troyes join bottom club Metz in Ligue 2 while Toulouse beat En Avant Guingamp 2-1 to finish 18th and will play either AC Ajaccio or Le Havre in a playoff.
The game between Ajaccio and Le Havre, due to be played on Friday, was postponed until Sunday after fans attacked the Le Havre bus, the French League said on Saturday, condemning “serious incidents”.
Elsewhere, Italian coach Claudio Ranieri won his last game in charge of mid-table Nantes, 1-0 over Strasbourg.
Monaco needed just one point to qualify for the Champions League but made sure they finished runners-up with a win.
Rony Lopes beat Erwin Zelazny on 21 minutes after the keeper had parried Youri Telemans’ shot into the Portugal striker’s path.
Lopes made sure there would be no late drama when he scored again with a low shot in the 71st minute and Jordi Mboul added a third in stoppage time.
DEPAY TREBLE
At Lyon’s Groupama stadium, Nice went ahead in the 18th minute when Alassane Plea collected a fine through ball from Mario Balotelli and shot between keeper Mathieu Gorgelin’s legs.
Lyon hit the woodwork before the break, but Depay struck three times in the second half.
The Dutch striker poked the ball home from Nabil Fekir’s cross in the 48th minute and he made it 2-1 on 65 minutes with a low free kick that went under the wall.
Four minutes before time, Depay chipped the ball past Walter Benitez to wrap up the game. Plea pulled one back two minutes later with a powerful strike for his second of the game.
“The group this year has done very well, it is a fair reward to finish third,” Lyon captain Fekir told French television, before refusing to commit his future to the club.
“I don’t know, frankly. I gave everything at Lyon, we’ll see for the future. It hasn’t been perfect this season, but it’s a good finish.”
Marseille struck first in the race for the Champions League against Amiens at the Stade Velodrome, as teenager Boubacar Kamara’s clever pass picked out Morgan Sanson who slammed a fierce shot into the roof of the net to give Rudi Garcia’s men an 11th-minute lead against Troyes.
Just seconds after Lyon fell behind at the Groupama Stadium, things got even better for Garcia’s team as Kostas Mitroglou reacted quickest after Lucas Ocampos’ header was saved to stab in the ninth goal of his first Ligue 1 season.
But Amiens hit back to give Lyon a boost, as Moussa Konate took advantage of some terrible home defending to halve the deficit before half-time.
Visiting midfielder Thomas Monconduit was rightly sent off for a horrendous challenge as he slammed his studs into the planted leg of Ocampos, who was lucky not to escape serious injury, early in the second half.
Marseille saw out the win, but the three points provided little joy as results elsewhere meant they wasted two chances to return to Europe’s top table in just four days.
“Everyone started screaming in the stands and we thought it was 3-3 in Lyon,” said Marseille star forward Florian Thauvin. “We’ve had a good season, but haven’t been rewarded.”
Final standings
(Tabulated under played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, total):
PSG 38 29 6 3 108 29 93
Monaco 38 24 8 6 85 45 80
Lyon 38 23 9 6 87 43 78
Marseille 38 22 11 5 80 47 77
Rennes 38 16 10 12 50 44 58
Bordeaux 38 16 7 15 53 48 55
St-Etienne 38 15 10 13 47 50 55
Nice 38 15 9 14 53 52 54
Nantes 38 14 10 14 36 41 52
Montpellier 38 11 18 9 36 33 51
Dijon 38 13 9 16 55 73 48
Guingamp 38 12 11 15 48 59 47
Amiens 38 12 9 17 37 42 45
Angers 38 9 14 15 42 52 41
Strasbourg 38 9 11 18 44 67 38
Caen 38 10 8 20 27 52 38
Lille 38 10 8 20 41 67 38
Toulouse 38 9 10 19 38 54 37
Troyes 38 9 6 23 32 59 33
Metz 38 6 8 24 34 76 26
Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2018
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