Sauzee, it’s up for grabs now!

Aaah, the Place des Vosges.

That beautiful 17th century Parisian square, all colonnades and red brick, once home to Victor Hugo and, at number 21, the fearsome Cardinal Richelieu.

It is where flicky-haired Parisians and tourists go to relax after shopping and people-watching in the achingly cool Marais.

And it is also where, if you look closely enough you will see, on a road sign, a sticker which reads: “Fuck you, Marseille!”

On Sunday Olympique Marseille play PSG. It is the most famous fixture in French football, its greatest rivalry, the clash between the two biggest French cities.

It is a contest between the entitled capital and the ignored South, between tradition in the form of 104-year-old Marseille and monied arrivistes PSG, who are six years younger than Match of the Day.
Le Classique is many things, but it is usually important.

Sunday’s clash at the Stade Velodrome is no different; PSG currently sit second and unbeaten in Ligue 1, with 18 points from eight games.

After a slow start, the Parisians are finding form and their 3-0 dismissal of Benfica this week in the Champions League was by far their best performance of the season.

Marseille sit one place and point behind PSG. But they are not in the best of moods.

OM lost 3-0 to Borussia Dortmund this week and have won just twice in their last seven matches.

They do however, have a fine home record against PSG, having lost at the Stade Velodrome only once in the past eight years.

A win for PSG on Sunday would confirm what many think of Ligue 1 this season, that it is a two-horse race between PSG and leaders, Monaco.

Any kind of win for Marseille would be akin to a whole load of apple carts upsetting themselves on a nearby Pandora’s box while surrounded by watching pigeons and a passing cat.

But despite a long-running antipathy between the city of Paris and the regions, the OM/PSG football rivalry is a modern concept.

Like many things in modern football, it owes a debt to television’s powers of hype and…Hibernian FC.

Sky’s equivalent in France is Canal Plus.

A subscription TV channel, it is a must-have at home if you want to watch Lille v Valenciennes, or more importantly, avoid the still-running French version of The Price is Right.

It started broadcasting in 1984 and was once the sponsor of PSG. By the early 1990s it had hit upon the idea of hyping up matches between PSG and Marseille.

In charge of Marseille at the time was the not shy and retiring Bernard Tapie. He shared the enthusiasm for building up the match and Le Derby de France was born.

It also helped that from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s was a time when Paris and Marseille were winning league titles, and in Marseille’s case, the European Cup.

But the rivalry was truly born in the 1988/89 season.

At the same time Michael Thomas was famously winning the Division One title for Arsenal at Liverpool, something very similar was happening in the south of France.

Marseille and PSG had chased each other all season until playing each other on the final day.

Both had 70 points, both had a goal difference of plus 20 and heading towards the final moments of the match, both had a goal apiece.
Step forward, from about 25 yards, Hibernian legend to be, Franck Sauzee.

There was little time for anything else. Marseille won 2-1, Sauzee’s strike now known as not just as any goal, but a “but du sacre”, sacred goal. They secured the league and the double that season.

(Incidentally, the top scorers in Ligue 1 that season? Marseille’s Papin with 22, second was Monaco’s Glenn Hoddle with 18. Laurent Blanc of Montpellier scored 15, one more than Hoddle’s teammate, George Weah. Bordeaux’s Clive Allen managed 13, two more than colleague Eric Cantona and four more than FC Nantes Atlantique’s Mo Johnston).

Marseille had also, with that match, secured themselves a long-term rival. PSG managed a type of revenge in 1993/94, squeezing Marseille into second place.

The matches between the two progressively got more edgy off the pitch as well. In 1995, more than 150 people ended up in hospital after fighting, five years later a teenage Marseille fan was paralysed after being hit by a seat.

This weekend’s match has the added spice of whoever wins could go top. It’s not quite 1988/89, but for Sunday it will do.