PARIS: Ousmane Dembele scored twice as Paris Saint-Germain warmed up for the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie against Liverpool by winning 4-1 away to Rennes in Ligue 1 with a much-changed team on Saturday.
Bradley Barcola and Goncalo Ramos had PSG 2-0 up in Brittany before Lilian Brassier pulled one back for Rennes, but Dembele netted twice in stoppage time to seal the victory for the visitors.
The result allowed the Ligue 1 leaders to maintain their unbeaten record in domestic competition this season.
The Parisians are now a huge 16 points clear at the top before closest challengers Marseille play at home to Lens later.
Luis Enrique’s side were ultimately comfortable winners despite the coach making eight changes to his starting line-up in between the two legs of the Liverpool tie, with the return at Anfield coming up on Tuesday.
“We are in perfect condition to go and take on Liverpool. We have nothing to lose and we will give everything to try to qualify,” for the quarter-finals, said Luis Enrique.
“It was difficult but we put in a serious performance and it gives us lots of hope before going to Liverpool,” the Spaniard added of his team’s display.
Barcola, Joao Neves and Willian Pacho were the only players to keep their places for PSG against Rennes following the 1-0 home loss to Liverpool in the first leg last Wednesday.
Dembele was among the regular starters to be rested at kick-off, but he came off the bench just after the hour mark and the France forward’s double strike moves him onto 20 league goals for the campaign.
The player who began his career at Rennes has now scored 28 times in all competitions this season, including 23 goals in 18 appearances since mid-December.
Rennes came into the game on a run of four wins in five outings to climb up into mid-table after Habib Beye replaced Jorge Sampaoli as coach at the end of January.
However, PSG went in front at Roazhon Park on 27 minutes as Desire Doue, another former Rennes player, quickly took a free-kick just inside the home half and released Barcola to run through and score his 18th goal of the season.
Teenage forward Mohamed Kader Meite almost equalized for Rennes before the break, heading off the crossbar from Adrien Truffert’s cross.
Barcola then turned provider as PSG doubled their lead five minutes after half-time, squaring for Ramos — one of those brought into the starting line-up — to net his 13th this season in all competitions.
Center-back Brassier pulled one back for Rennes shortly after, heading in from close range after a corner had been flicked on.
However, Luis Enrique then sent on the cavalry, with Dembele, Nuno Mendes, Vitinha, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Achraf Hakimi all coming off the bench for the latter stages.
PSG made sure of the points as Hakimi ran through on goal before unselfishly squaring for Dembele to make it 3-1 in the first minute of stoppage time at the end of the game.
Dembele then fired in his second and PSG’s fourth goal from the edge of the area in the 94th minute.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Lille were 1-0 winners at home to Montpellier in a game that fell in between the two legs of their Champions League last-16 tie against Borussia Dortmund.
Jonathan David scored the only goal of the game early in the second half, the Canadian netting his 14th of the campaign in Ligue 1.
Lille are fifth in the table, behind Monaco in fourth on goal difference.
They entertain Dortmund on Wednesday after drawing 1-1 in the first leg in Germany.
Dembele hits double as PSG win ahead of Liverpool return
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Dembele hits double as PSG win ahead of Liverpool return
- Bradley Barcola and Goncalo Ramos had PSG 2-0 up in Brittany before Lilian Brassier pulled one back for Rennes
- Dembele netted twice in stoppage time to seal the victory for the visitors
Hosts Morocco off to winning start at Africa Cup of Nations
- Soufiane Rahimi had a penalty saved in a frustrating first half for much-fancied Morocco
- Win saw Morocco, Africa’s best team in FIFA rankings in 11th place, to extend world-record winning run to 19 consecutive matches
RABAT: Brahim Diaz and Ayoub El-Kaabi scored second-half goals as hosts Morocco got their Africa Cup of Nations bid off to a winning start by beating minnows Comoros 2-0 in the tournament’s opening game on Sunday.
Soufiane Rahimi had a penalty saved in a frustrating first half for much-fancied Morocco, but Diaz fired home from inside the area 10 minutes after the interval at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in the capital Rabat.
Substitute El-Kaabi then got the second with a stunning overhead kick, and the victory on a wet and cold night sets the Atlas Lions up for the potentially tougher tests to come in Group A against Mali and Zambia.
The result also allowed Morocco, Africa’s best team in the FIFA rankings in 11th place, to extend their world-record winning run to 19 consecutive matches.
The game was played out before a crowd of 60,180, with Moroccan Crown Prince Moulay Hassan — who appeared on the pitch ahead of kick-off — and FIFA president Gianni Infantino among those in attendance.
Morocco’s star man and captain Achraf Hakimi also ended up watching the entire game from the bench, with coach Walid Regragui preserving the Paris Saint-Germain full-back who has not played since suffering an ankle injury with his club at the start of November.
It looked set to be a long night for Comoros when Morocco won a penalty in the 10th minute as playmaker Diaz was tripped inside the box by Iyad Mohamed.
But Rahimi’s spot-kick was kept out by the legs of Yannick Pandor as the Comoros goalkeeper dived to his right, and the visitors then succeeded in thwarting their more illustrious hosts for the remainder of the first half.
- Stunning overhead kick -
However Morocco, who also saw veteran center-back Romain Saiss come off injured early on, succeeded in breaking down their opponents after half-time.
Comoros, the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago who are 108th in the world rankings, had their resistance ended as the opening goal arrived on 55 minutes.
Manchester United’s Noussair Mazraoui, starting at right-back with Hakimi not yet quite fully fit, picked up the ball on the right side of the penalty area and squared for Real Madrid’s Spanish-born number 10 Diaz to score.
Morocco, who had seen Neil El Aynaoui almost break the deadlock just before that, then saw space open up although Comoros had a chance of their own as Rafiki Said was denied when clean through on goal.
Mazraoui forced a good save from Pandor before El-Kaabi, of Greek giants Olympiakos, lit up the occasion by meeting a cross in from the left by Anass Salah-Eddine with a magnificent overhead bicycle kick to make it 2-0.
Morocco’s next game will be on Friday against Mali, who begin their campaign by taking on Zambia in Casablanca on Monday.
Elsewhere on Monday, South Africa face Angola in Marrakech before Mohamed Salah’s Egypt — the record seven-time African champions chasing a first title since 2010 — get their bid up and running against outsiders Zimbabwe in Agadir in Group B.
This latest edition of the Cup of Nations is the first to start in one year and end in another, with the final to take place in Rabat on January 18.
