Marseille-Lens duel for podium in French soccer

Havana, October 22 (RHC)-- Olympique de Marseille will host Lens today at the Velodrome in a match of the continuation of the 12th round of French soccer, a duel in which the podium will be at stake for both clubs.

Marseille will go into the interesting home match in fourth place in Ligue 1 with 23 points, while the visitors will be in third place with 24 points in a competition led by favorites PSG (32), followed by surprise package Lorient (26), who will face lowly Troyes (12) tomorrow.

For the Focaise and their coach, Igor Tudor, home advantage represents a good opportunity to make up ground after two consecutive defeats, the first in the French season, failures responsible for the team's fall from second to fourth place.

Lens also lost their unbeaten run on the tenth matchday, but then bounced back last weekend with a 1-0 win over Montpellier, and will look to cling on to third place today in the southern city, which maintains the possibility of competing in the next UEFA Champions League.

For Marseille, the attacking star is Chilean veteran Alexis Sanchez, scorer of four goals in Ligue 1, and for Lens Florian Sotoca stands out with six.

In the other Saturday match of matchday 12, tenth-placed Olympique Lyon, in tenth place with 14 points, will visit Montpellier (12) with their sights set on a win to turn their campaign around, a mission entrusted to coach Laurent Blanc, who took up his post just a few days ago.

Last night, PSG opened the day with a 3-0 win in Corsica against Ajaccio, thanks to a team-playing display from stars Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi.