Paris: Paris Saint-Germain continued their march towards a Ligue 1 title as Marco Verratti propelled them to a 4-0 home win against the Stade de Reims on Sunday and Lionel Messi made his first appearance of the year.
Italy midfielder Verratti found the back of the net for PSG for the first time since 2019, while Sergio Ramos scored his first goal for the capital. Wout Faes scored one of his goals, and Danilo Pereira scored another to link PSG to 53 points from 22 matches.
They lead Nice, who beat Metz 2-0 earlier on Sunday, two points ahead of Olympique de Marseille with 11 points in third place, but with a game in hand.
The defeat left Reims, who got off to a promising start at the Parc des Princes, but finished 14th with 24 points after the opener.
With Messi on the bench for the first time this year and back in the team, PSG started out with Kylian Mbappe, Mauro Icardi and Angel Di Maria after contracting COVID-19 during the break.
Mbappe had two clear chances after half an hour, but it was Verratti who broke the deadlock just before halftime when he hit a low shot to Predrag Rajkovic.
It then became easy for the hosts and Ramos nearly doubled the advantage in 63 minutes after Andrew Gravillon carried Pereira’s header on the Spaniard’s path.
Verratti’s shot from Messi was then deflected into his goal by Fes, shortly after Argentina replaced Di Maria in the 64th minute.
Pereira wrapped it up in the 76th when his powerful shot took a deflection before crossing Rajkovic.
Elsewhere, Racing Strasbourg lost ground in the race for a top-three spot when they lost 4–3 at the Girondins de Bordeaux, which won thanks to a hat-trick from Hwang Ui-jo.
Strasbourg is fourth on 35 points, five points behind Marseille.
Stade Renais is fifth on 34 points after a 2-1 loss at Clermont.
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