Leaders Monaco could only manage a draw (2-2) on the Lorient pitch this Sunday, in a game marked by the home team’s first tackle in the game in the 70th minute by Benjamin Mendy since his acquittal in a rape trial in England was marked.
With a draw in the last gasp of the game, Monaco remains alone at the top of Ligue 1, ahead of Brest (2nd), who won 2-1 in Reims, and Marseille (4th), who are not above a 0-0 draw came out at home against Toulouse, this Sunday in the fifth round of the French championship.
After PSG’s home defeat against Nice on Friday (3-2), neither Monaco nor Marseille took the opportunity to gain a three-point lead over the current Paris champions.
In Lorient, the local team scored the first goal in the 2nd minute through Benin’s Tosin Aiyegun.
But Monaco managed to turn the game around thanks to goals from Russian Aleksander Golovin (17th) and American Folarin Balogun (69th).
When it looked like the Monegasque team would consolidate their lead with a win, Lorient equalized in stoppage time with a goal from Romain Faivre (90+8).
The equalizer came after a long ball from Mendy, which was picked up by Isaak Touré and then by Faivre in the penalty area, as Monaco appeared to have managed to turn the game around after being 1-0 down.
“After that game there was a kind of birth certificate for the energy of the team, the will to stick together and fight until the last second. There was a reward at the end and it will be an emotional mark that lasts,” said Lorient coach Regis Le Bris.
– First game since 2021 –
Mendy, who was found not guilty of rape and attempted rape in England in June, was playing his first official game in more than two years.
The defender, World Cup winner with France in 2018, against whom the British judiciary has no charges since his acquittal, came out to the cheers of the Lorient crowd shortly after a goal that gave Monaco a lead on the scoreboard (2 -1) .
His two consecutive acquittals in a first trial in January and a second in June ended all cases against him by the British judiciary.
The French club kept the player away from any media inquiries as he worked to regain fitness following his professional inactivity, having not played an official match since August 15, 2021 in a clash at Tottenham.
