PSG needs stoppage-time penalty to draw with Rennes. American Balogun scores in Monaco's win
PARIS (AP) — Kylian Mbappé was kept quiet as French league leader Paris Saint-Germain needed a penalty from substitute Gonçalo Ramos seven minutes into stoppage time to scrape a 1-1 home draw with Rennes on Sunday.
It was Mbappé’s first home game since telling PSG he is leaving the club at the end of the season. Coach Luis Enrique told fans to start getting used to life without PSG's 244-goal, all-time record scorer.
“It's very simple, sooner or later, when it happens (that he leaves) we must get used to playing without Kylian,” Luis Enrique said. “When I want to select him I will (and) when that's not the case, same thing.”
Ramos came on for 21-goal league top scorer Mbappé midway through the second half, and scored from the spot after a video review ruled that goalkeeper Steve Mandanda had fouled him.
That decision came after another video review overturned a penalty and ruled that Ramos had not been fouled in the 84th minute.
Mandanda made two fine saves for Rennes, which scored through Amine Gouiri's excellent solo goal in the 33rd minute.
The lively forward ran at the defense from some 30 meters out, skipped past Vitinha, put the ball through Danilo's legs and then beat goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma with the outside of his foot.
PSG only just avoided its second league defeat this season, which was at home against Nice in September.
The draw cut PSG's big lead to 11 points over second-place Brest. Improving Rennes is in seventh place.
In Sunday's late game, veteran striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice as ninth-place Marseille beat struggling Montpellier 4-1 at Stade Velodrome.
The visitors scored in the fifth minute through midfielder Mousa Al-Tamari after Marseille defender Samuel Gigot botched a clearance.
Goals from forwards Iliman Ndiaye and Aubameyang put Marseille ahead at the break, and Aubameyang grabbed his second goal from the penalty spot in the 62nd after Ndiaye was fouled. The fourth goal was an own-goal late on from defender Falaye Sacko.
The win must have felt strange for Marseille's new coach Jean-Louis Gasset. The 70-year-old was born in Montpellier, played 10 years for the club as a gritty midfielder, twice coached the club and his father was one of its founding members.
In the lunchtime match, American forward Folarin Balogun scored early and missed a late penalty before his teammate Takumi Minamino reprieved him with an injury-time goal as Monaco won 3-2 at Lens to move up to third place.
Goalkeeper Brice Samba saved Balogun's 82nd-minute penalty, which was awarded after Balogun was fouled in a French league thriller.
Lens rallied from 2-0 down but conceded in the second minute of stoppage time, when Minamino's fine shot from the right found the left corner.
The 22-year-old Balogun put Monaco in front in the 19th minute when he controlled a long pass with his head, beat a defender and finished coolly past Samba. It was only his fifth league goal since an offseason move from Premier League Arsenal, having netted 21 times on loan to Reims last season.
Samba's own-goal in the 30th following a speculative shot from striker Wissam Ben Yedder put Monaco in control, but Monaco's defensive lapses have been commonplace and Lens hit back through strikers Elye Wahi and Wesley Saïd.
Monaco is one point ahead of French Riviera rival Nice, which surprisingly drew 0-0 at home to last-place Clermont, while Lille stayed in fifth spot after losing 3-1 at Toulouse despite taking the lead.
Also, eighth-place Reims won 2-1 at Le Havre.
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