In the match of the 16th round of the French championship, Marseille will host Monaco. Both teams recently aspired to be the main challengers for PSG's status, but now both have noticeably slowed down. At the same time, Marseille feels more confident. They share third and fourth place with Lille. They are two points ahead of Rennes, five points ahead of Lyon, but lag behind Lens by the same number of points, who are chasing PSG.

After a series of victories, Marseille has not managed to gain three points in two consecutive rounds. In the previous match, they lost to Lille (0:1), earlier they drew with Toulouse (2:2), and before that had several consecutive wins with vibrant, effective play. Monaco's situation is noticeably worse. The Monegasques occupy eighth place, six points behind Marseille. They have the same number of points as Toulouse, one point less than Lyon, and four points less than Rennes.

In the previous round, Monaco lost to Brest (0:1), before that they defeated PSG (1:0) and had a series of defeats, including heavy losses to Rennes (1:4) and Lens (1:4). This week in the Champions League, Monaco beat Galatasaray (1:0) and also had a draw with Paphos (2:2). This week, Marseille clinched a victory against Union (3:2) in the Champions League, and in the previous round of this European tournament, they managed to defeat Newcastle (2:1).

Last season, Marseille defeated Monaco at home 2:1, but lost heavily away 0:3. Now both teams have defensive problems, strong motivation, and good attacking play, so we can expect a high-scoring game.