PARIS \u2014 Lens capped a fine week by beating Metz 3-0 on Sunday to move one point behind Ligue 1 leader Paris Saint-Germain in a tense title race.<\/p>\n
PSG\u2019s 3-1 home defeat to Monaco on Friday opened the door for rival Lens, which reached the French Cup semifinals on Thursday after beating Lyon on penalties following a 2-2 draw.<\/p>\n
There are nine games left in Ligue 1 and Lens hosts PSG on April 11.<\/p>\n
Rock-bottom Metz rode its luck until Saudi Arabian defender Saud Abdulhamid put Lens ahead just before halftime with a powerful half-volley following good work from striker Abdallah Sima, who had twice gone close to scoring.<\/p>\n
Abdulhamid then combined with Adrien Thomasson to set up France winger Florian Thauvin for a neat finish from the edge of the penalty area just after the break.<\/p>\n
Midfielder Amadou Haidara made it 3-0 in the 52nd minute after playing a one-two with former Metz captain Matthieu Udol as Lens took control. Udol was born in Metz and made 185 appearances at left back before forcing a move this summer.<\/p>\n
Later Sunday, Lyon was looking to bounce back from two league defeats and a French Cup exit when it hosted Paris FC, which won under new coach Antoine Kombouar\u00e9 last weekend.<\/p>\n
Also, Lille hosted midtable Lorient.<\/p>\n
Thauvin scored one goal, set up the other and then netted with the decisive kick in the penalty shootout against Lyon.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old Thauvin joined from Italian side Udinese this season. He was a fringe player in the France team when it won the 2018 World Cup and then had a long spell out.<\/p>\n
But Thauvin’s fine form with Lens helped him break back into the national team and he scored against Azerbaijan last October. He is pushing for a place in coach Didier Deschamps’ World Cup squad later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Lens capped a fine week by beating Metz 3-0 on Sunday to move one point behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-523073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}