Folarin Balogun made his debut for Reims off the bench and score a consolation goal in their heavy loss to Marseille in Ligue 1 action.
Marseille 4 – 1 Reims
Having been sent out on loan by his parent club, Arsenal FC, Folarin Balogun made the most of his Ligue 1 debut by lighting up the scoreboard in the second half during Reims’ trip to the French south coast. It was to be too little, too late however because already down 3-0 at the time, Marseille scored once more to humiliate the teams from the Champagne Region.
To be fair, it was the visitors who found the back of the net first but unfortunately for Belgian defender Wout Faes, it went into the back of his own net. Marseille’s second however was of their own doing, and it was another Arsenal loanee who struck this one. Nuno Tavares struck from the top left of the 18-yard box and watched his shot evade defenders and the Reims keeper to double the score.
It only got worse for Reims in the second half as Marseille added their third goal of the game in the 75th minute. Luis Suarez, the Colombian international, came off the bench to put the ball in the back of the net after his initial shot was blocked by a Reims defender.
There was no way for the visitors to come back from a 3-0 setback, but Balogun, who entered the game in the 64th minute got them on the scoreboard. Alexis Flips’ cross from the right side took a deflection off the leg of Marseille defender Leonardo Balerdi, allowing the Arsenal graduate to head the ball into the goal.
However, the hosts added a fourth goal in the stoppage time to close out the game. Cedric Bakambu pounced on the ball during a counter-attack and crossed it over to Suarez to put away the easy tap-in.
Up next for Reims will be a home game against Clermont, in which they hope to get their first points of the season.
Note
Erik Palmer-Brown played 89 minutes for Troyes as they surrendered a late goal to see them fall to Montpellier in a 3-2 loss.
Timothy Weah didn’t suit up for Lille’s 4-1 victory over Auxerre.
