Rennes (AFP)
Rennes provisionally regained the lead of the championship on Sunday by snatching a 2-1 victory against Monaco, the very young Adrien Truffert responding in added time to Wissam Ben Yedder's first goal of the season.
With a total of 10 points, Julien Stéphan's men have now regained a head start over Saint-Etienne, who travels to Nantes on Sunday and will welcome them next week in his cauldron.
At Roazhon Park, the pace was sustained from the start, with a dangerous Monegasque center in the 1st minute and a Rennes reply from the 4th, but very quickly, the Monegasque pressing started to gain the upper hand, pushed by a Ben Yedder who regularly waved his teammates up.
The Monegasque captain found himself in a position to open the scoring several times, first by an acrobatic kickback countered by Damien Da Silva (7th) then on a bright pass from Cesc Fabregas in the back of the defense, where he missed his control (26th).
Besieged, the Rennes have made more mistakes, even if Faitout Maouassa tried to sound the alarm clock by going up almost all the field to serve Serhou Guirassy, who however saw Benoît Badiashile cut the trajectory of the ball.
And it was after a defensive error that Monaco opened the scoring: on a strike from Sofiane Diop, the young midfielder trained in Rennes but who had chosen to sign his first professional contract in Monaco two years ago, Steven Nzonzi and Da Silva got in the box and the ball landed in the feet of Ben Yedder, isolated in the corner.
The French international, who had found twice the amounts but still had not scored this season, opened his counter with a strike under the bar (0-1, 28th).
He also touched the crossbar again on a superb strike on the hour mark, but he was anyway offside (58th).
In the second half, Rennes started to push but the Monegasque block was well in place and its quick and dangerous revivals.
Especially since Rennes still lacked precision, their young star Eduardo Camavinga always being a tone below his level.
A huge strike from Benjamin Bourigeaud repelled by the left post (65th) and a header from Serhou Guirassy just above the frame (79th), however, kept the audience - still sparse but noisy - in suspense.
And Roazhon Park exulted when Nzonzi equalized with a pricked header, on a pass from the young left side Adrien Truffert, 18, another nugget from the Rennes training center who made his Ligue 1 debut on Saturday (1-1, 81st).
Entered at the end of the first period in place of Maouassa, hit in an ankle, Truffert even gave the advantage to the Red and Black with a powerful strike from the left in the very last minutes (90 + 2, 2-1).
© 2020 AFP