This season Marseille pleases with the quality of football and the results. A rare exception is the third position in the group stage of the Europa League, where the southerners went to the new club tournament from UEFA. It is noteworthy that at the first stage the team lost only once, while losing to Galatasaray and Lazio. The team had a good start in the French Cup, where, after success with Rocheville (4:1) and Chauvigny (3:0), the Provencals beat Montpellier (2:1) in a series of 11-meter kicks. In the Ligue 1 tournament Olimpik occupies the third position after 22 rounds. The White-Blues have 11 wins and seven draws, which correspond to 40 points, which is two less than the second Nice. After a draw with Lille (1:1), Jorge Sampaoli’s wards beat Lens (2:0) and failed to cope with Lyon (1:2) on the road. Guye, Dieng and Gerson, who went to the national team, will not be able to play today.
Before the start of the season, Bochum was considered one of the main contenders for relegation, but the team of Thomas Rice played the first round at a very high level. Since the start of the championship, the “inflexible” have been quite stable and regularly took points, which helped them go to the winter break in the middle of the standings, but in the second round the team’s performance is not yet impressive. With 24 points, Bochum is on the 11th line in the table and theoretically can even join the fight for European competition. Seven points are missing from the sixth Leipzig. However, it is much more important for the inflexible to move away as far as possible from the zone of transitional matches, from which they are still five points apart. Having painted in the last round a 2:2 draw with Cologne, Bochum could not win in the second match in a row.
