Brazilian Neymar had to be protected by the police during their heated clash against Marseille on Sunday night at the Orange Vélodrome that ended in a goalless draw.
Before the match, the decision was made to not allow PSG supporters into the stands for safety reasons and Marseille showed why that decision was made. PSG won a corner kick midway through the game and while Neymar walked to the corner flag to take the resultant kick, Marseille fans started throwing trash at him-a move that needed police intervention.
Some of the policemen held shields to deflect the debris aimed at the Brazil international. Despite the draw, PSG are still miles ahead in the Ligue 1 table with 28 points from 11 games with Marseille placed fourth on 18 points. lens (21) and Nice (19) sits at position two and three respectively. PSG had to play a chunk of the game with a man less after defender Hachraf Hakimi was shown a red card earlier in the second half.
Achraf brought down Cengiz Under as the last man and was given his marching orders. Initially the referee gave a foul in favour of PSG, but after a VAR review it was confirmed that the right-back did foul Under. Frustratingly for Marseille, though, the foul occurred on the edge of the box and not inside the area.
There were two first-half goals through Neymar and Arkadiusz Milik, but they were both ruled out for narrow offsides. Achraf Hakimi was then sent off in the second half, but Marseille were unable to capitalise on their man advantage.
Mauricio Pochettino was able to line up his Quatre Fantastiques in Lionel Messi, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Angel Di Maria, but they were unable to find a way through a stubborn Marseille defence. Following Achraf's red card, Di Maria was the man withdrawn. In the 14th minute, Neymar's shot looked like it was going miles wide of Pau Lopez's goal, but Luan Peres turned it into his own net. Luckily for the Marseille centre-back, though, Neymar was adjudged by the VAR to have been narrowly offside.
Six minutes later, it was Marseille who thought they had taken the lead. The roof came off the Velodrome as Milik kept his composure to turn home a cross from Pol Lirola, but a VAR review confirmed that the wing-back was in an offside position when he received the ball.
Messi was pretty quiet for the majority of the game, but he did see his header come back out off the crossbar after he found himself in acres of space in the 26th minute.
The wind was in Marseille's sails and Valentin Rongier almost opened the scoring in the 65th minute, as his header from a pinpoint Dimitri Payet cross went just wide of Keylor Navas' post. Towards the end of the game, Mbappe was through on goal and looked a guarantee to score, but William Saliba made a last-ditch tackle to prevent the PSG forward from scoring.