Marseille win Champions Trophy

Marseille win Champions Trophy
(

League champions Marseille won France's Champions Trophy when they beat their biggest rivals Paris St Germain 5-4 on penalties on Wednesday after the match ended goalless.

After a tepid 90 minutes the game went straight to spot-kicks. PSG's Peguy Luyindula missed the very first kick but goalkeeper Gregory Coupet kept out Lucho Gonzalez to leave it level at 4-4 after five kicks.

Ludovic Giuly then missed the first extra kick leaving Marseille's Edouard Cisse to seal the first silverware of the season. The annual curtain raiser to the domestic season between the Ligue 1 winners and the French Cup winners - PSG beat Monaco in the final this year - was some way below the intensity usually shown when these two sides meet in spite of the encouragement of a 55,000 crowd at the November 7 Stadium.

The first half was particularly grim with neither side able to conjure even a hint of a chance. The tempo picked up slightly in the second half when Hatem Ben Arfa came on as a 61st minute replacement for Mathieu Valbuena. The French under-21 international, who has been linked with a number of clubs including Newcastle United and AC Milan as cash-strapped Marseille attempt to raise some revenue, looked keen to impress potential suitors. Four minutes after coming on he went within a whisker of putting Didier Deschamps' side ahead, his 30-metre drive just sliding the wrong side of the upright.

Two minutes from time Luyindula turned well inside the area but put his shot centimetres over the bar. Marseille almost snatched it when Taye Taiwo's shot deflected off PSG's Leyti N'Diaye and on to the post but it was not enough to stop the match from going to penalties. The Champions Trophy is often played outside France in order to boost the image of French football abroad. Last year's curtain-raiser was played in Quebec.