Ligue 1 2011, Week 15: Will Montpellier Continue To Be The Only Genuinely Good Thing About European Football?

Marseille have started to recover from their terrible start to this year’s Ligue 1 campaign and with a 2-1 away win against Caen they find themselves within nine points of league leaders Montpellier in seventh place, something that would have been unthinkable after their first two months. Caen didn’t make it easy for the Champions League side, however, harassing and harrying their guests throughout and employing the time-honoured tactic of kicking them very hard as often as possible.

Caen were playing reasonably well and putting a decent amount of pressure on the Marseille goal, but they were also committing too many players forward and their guests were going to make them pay. A perfect counterattack saw Andre Ayew race down the centre of the pitch and release Souleymane Diawara on the right. Diawara’s first-time centering pass was swept into the back of the net by Jordan Ayew, and Marseille had a lead that they would not relinquish.

That headline is obviously somewhat hyperbolic, but not as much as you might think. I suppose it depends on how cynical you are. Me? I can’t look at a kitten chasing a butterfly without making an aside about the 12,000 stray cats that have been abandoned by their owners in the 90037 zip code in Los Angeles alone.

Pick: Marseille, 2-0