Lyon's throne, Nantes's patience: the crown changes hands without a goal
A goalless afternoon at home was enough to take Nantes past Lyon to the top of Ligue 1, while the deposed leaders lost at Sochaux and Marseille and Nice kept breathing down their necks.
There is a way of winning that looks like losing, and Nantes practised it on Sunday: a 0-0 with Nice at home, no flourish, no goal, and yet the summit of Ligue 1. Lyon, who had led a cycle ago, went to Sochaux and lost 2-1. The crown did not so much change heads as slip from one to the other, and the table now reads Nantes 27 points, Lyon 26, Marseille 25, Nice 24. Four clubs within three points after twelve games: that is not a hierarchy, it is a conversation.
Lyon's afternoon is the one that stings. A side with a goal difference of +22, the best in the division, undone by a Sochaux team nobody had placed among the contenders. There is a lesson in it for the men from the Rhône, and a warning for everyone else: in this league the arithmetic of superiority means little on a Saturday.
Elsewhere, the chasing pack kept their manners. Marseille lost at home to Paris Saint-Germain, 0-1, a result that does more for the capital's mood than for the standings; Nice took their point from Nantes and stayed fourth. Nîmes, fifth on 23, produced the weekend's flourish, 4-0 against Rennes, and Montpellier's 2-0 over Caen lifted them from twelfth to ninth. Lorient climbed three places to tenth by beating Lens 2-1.
At the other end, Strasbourg's 3-1 win at Troyes pushed Troyes down from eleventh to fourteenth, and Lens, seventeenth on seven points, are beginning to feel the cold. Dijon, eighteenth, beat Monaco 1-0 — a small mercy in a hard season.
Nantes are top, as they were after eight games, and the men from the Beaujoire know the difference between leading in autumn and leading in May. On 10 November they go to Bordeaux. The crown sits lightly for now; the winter will decide how heavily it weighs.