Olympique Marseille almost produced the collapse of the Ligue 1 season on Sunday, throwing away a 4-0 lead at the Orange Velodrome before clinging on to beat bottom club Le Havre 4-3 — with only a stoppage-time VAR reprieve sparing them total humiliation.
Goals from CJ Egan-Riley, Timothy Weah, Igor Paixao and Himad Abdelli had the home crowd dreaming of a rout inside 55 minutes. Instead, Nigeria international Josh Maja came off the bench to score twice and turn a procession into a panic, as Reuters reported from a wild afternoon in the south of France.
Four goals and cruising inside 55 minutes
Marseille were ahead after just five minutes, Egan-Riley heading in an Emerson Palmieri cross to settle any early nerves. Weah doubled the lead on 33 minutes, and when Paixao made it 3-0 five minutes after the restart from an Amine Gouiri assist, the contest looked over. Abdelli added a fourth on 55 minutes and the Velodrome began celebrating a third straight league win in style.
The numbers underlined the control: Marseille edged possession and had done their damage with ruthless efficiency. But this is a side still haunted by Marseille's recent European struggles — and the fragility that has dogged their season was about to return with a vengeance.
Maja leads a comeback that nearly made history
Le Havre, winless and bottom of the table, had nothing to lose — and in Maja they had a finisher determined to prove it. Introduced on the hour, the striker converted a penalty on 77 minutes to make it 4-1. When Lamine N'Diaye headed a second on 86 minutes, the mood inside the ground flipped from celebration to dread.
Three minutes later it was 4-3, Maja rising to head in a Kaito Mizuta cross for his second of the game. Le Havre, who ended the match with more shots on target than their hosts, poured forward — and deep in stoppage time they thought they had a penalty for handball and the chance to complete one of the great Ligue 1 comebacks. After a VAR review, the claim was waved away, seven minutes into added time, and Marseille survived. The full sequence is laid out in AllFootball's match report.
So what does it mean?
The three points lift Marseille to eighth on 12 points — a remarkable position for a side that was stuck in the relegation zone only weeks ago — and leave them just two points behind champions Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon, who meet in the capital on Monday night in a match moved back a day for security reasons. At the other end of a weekend that also saw Lens beat Paris FC, Rennes now sit top of Ligue 1, one point clear of Lille and Monaco.
For Le Havre the pain is double: a heroic fightback with nothing to show for it, still bottom with two points from eight games, three adrift of Troyes — and PSG are their next visitors on October 30. Marseille, meanwhile, have a winning run to protect, but a defence that concedes three in 12 minutes to the league's bottom side has given every future opponent a blueprint.
Beyond the Final Whistle: A 4-3 win that feels like a warning. Marseille's attack is purring and their climb from the relegation zone to the edge of the European places is real — but a team with serious ambitions cannot switch off at 4-0 and need VAR to rescue it against the bottom club. The points say progress; the last 15 minutes say this side is still one bad spell away from crisis. Should Marseille fans be celebrating the comeback spirit they showed in holding on, or worrying about the collapse that made it necessary? Have your say below.
