Marseille 2-1 PSG: Nobody can save Paris

Olympique Marseille hosted PSG for the French Cup Round of 16 and handled Paris easily beating them 2-1 at the Velodrome and winning a home game against PSG for the first time in 11 years.

As a result, OM advanced to the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France while PSG crashes out in the Round of 16 for the second season in a row. Mauricio Pochettino fell to Christophe Galtier's OGC Nice a year ago. Now, it's Galtier falling to Igor Tudor's OM. Next season? Maybe it's Tudor managing PSG and falling to who knows who!

The last time OM defeated PSG at the Velodrome was in November of 2011, a simple Ligue 1 match that finished 3-0 in favor of Marseille in the middle of a cold French winter. This time out, though, the stakes were rather higher with PSG and OM fighting for a place in the quarter-finals of the French Cup.

Turns out Marseille played for the win while PSG played just for the sake of it.

It must have felt glorious for Marseille, the team and their supporters, and I'm happy for them. Not only did they finally break a 10-plus-year hoodoo, but they did so at the best of times sending PSG back to Paris with their bags full of tears and having crashed out of the Coupe de France. For the second time in a row in the same round.

PSG started the game without even knowing what was coming their way. They were incredibly slow in the build-up phase, they lacked ideas and movement, and they were completely swamped by the high-octane pressure of Marseille.

When Paris realized the game had started, just three minutes into it, they had already landed a couple of blows and got saved by a candid referee that didn't want to award Marseille a penalty after an arm-blocked shot by Hakimi.

At least Marquinhos came to the rescue once and extended the initial 0-0 draw for a few more minutes than it should, with more than five consecutive shots by OM arriving between the 15th and 30th minute of the game.

Right after that, Sergio Ramos got faced with an offensive rush forward by Under who, savvy enough, forced the veteran defender to commit a nonsensical and avoidable penalty. Alexis Sanchez had no hesitation and kicked it in to put Marseille 1-0 up by the 31st minute. It wasn't until OM scored a goal that PSG kinda woke up a bit, ending the first half 1-1 thanks to a corner-kick goal by virtue of a Ramos header off the foot of Lionel Messi (after the ref incorrectly awarded PSG the corner, it must be said).

PSG showed an entirely different face coming off the halftime break. They were stronger and felt like the better, more collected team on the pitch, but once more crumbled on an always-shaky defense and allowed Ruslan Malinovskyi to bag a banger to put Marseille on top again with a commanding 2-1 lead. It all went downhill from there.

Marseille got to work, put on a low-block dress, limited PSG to playing lateral passes, and wholly wiped Neymar and Lionel Messi from the match. So much so that all they could do was walk around the final third without much success.

Verratti was already on the bench when the final minutes arrived. Fabian Ruiz, on the other hand, logged a fancy full 90 minutes (plus added time). Danilo was, somehow, subbed off the field. Carlos Soler was the last-resort option used by Christophe Galtier.

I don't think I need to say it but, yes, it was all a goddam mess of Galtier's own make. The team might have been lost and the players might not have stepped up enough, but the coach is always the one calling the shots and he failed miserably against Marseille on Wednesday and for the most part since the return from the World Cup break.

Sergio Ramos nearly saved PSG, or at least he was close to extending the suffering to what would have been a penalty shootout, but it didn't happen. He was offside on the first chance (which ended in a goal) and he sent his header to Pau Lopez's hands the second time he got an opportunity to approach the miracle.

One thing is clear. PSG crashed out of the French Cup and now they can only win the Ligue 1 and the Champions League. Good luck with that.