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The Marseille players did not kneel before their Champions League encounter with Manchester City on Tuesday, instead standing around the center circle and watching as Raheem Sterling and his teammates did so.
Players, coaches and other staff have been kneeling in England before games since June in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and now symbolizes the global fight against racism.
However, the gesture has not been adopted in France, prompting the jarring scenes at the Stade Velodrome seconds before kickoff.
PSG and Manchester United avoided these kinds of scenes last week because both teams decided against the pre-match ritual at the Parc des Princes and instead got the game going as usual.
However, as City remained determined to show their support for the fight against racism, Andre Villas-Boas’s men were seen huddling in a line as the Premier League team knelt.
Reports in France suggest that Ligue 1 players opted for a minute of silence rather than paying their respects to Samuel Paty, a French teacher who was killed in a terrorist attack last week.
Despite this, fans online questioned why the Marseille players did not kneel, while some claimed the hosts should be ’embarrassed’ and one Twitter user called the scene ‘absolutely embarrassing’.
City would continue to sail towards a 3-0 victory in France thanks to goals from Ferran Torres, Ilkay Gundogan and Sterling, as Pep Guardiola’s men prevailed in one-sided competition at the Stade Velodrome.
The victory puts City at the top of Group C after just two games and now Guardiola’s team is already looking for strong favorites to claim a spot in the round of 16.
City outscored their hosts, whose cautious approach and the deployment of a five-man defense couldn’t keep the visitors from taking over early on.
Guardiola said after the game: ‘It’s a good result for us, especially for the performance. We didn’t concede much and we created enough chances to win.
“Playing away from home in the Champions League is always tough. We have many examples last week and this week. They are doing very well, Marseille, in Ligue 1.
‘It was really good, especially the way we played, defensively and offensively, attention to all the details. When a team plays that way, 3-5-2, so defensive, you can lose your patience and get impatient to attack, and then you get punished with counterattacks and so on.
“We were calm at the right times. Everyone was in their position and that helped a lot to win the game. ”
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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