On the Mediterranean coast, Monaco have become the early pace-setters in France, while Lille are close enough to turn the seventh weekend of Ligue 1 into a contest between two coaches whose rivalry began in Rio de Janeiro. Filipe Luís and Davide Ancelotti, once opposing managers at Flamengo and Botafogo, are now carrying that contest into the French title race.
A weekend with first place in reach
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Lille, second with 13 points, host Brest on Saturday. Victory would put Davide Ancelotti’s side top of the table, at least until the following day.
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Monaco travel to Lorient on Sunday with 14 points from six matches. Filipe Luís’s team are the division’s only unbeaten side, having won four times and drawn twice.
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Among Monaco’s four victories was a 2-1 away success over Paris Saint-Germain in the third round, a result that helped establish the club as the surprise of the opening weeks.
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The teams meet directly in the next round, when Monaco welcome Lille on 25 October.
Lille also come into the domestic fixture after a 3-0 Champions League defeat at Arsenal, while Monaco’s league form has given Filipe Luís a narrow but significant advantage before the weekend begins.
Brunner unavailable in Lorient
Monaco will be without Paris Brunner for the trip to Lorient. The 21-year-old German forward has scored four league goals, placing him among Ligue 1’s joint second-highest scorers, but Sunday is the final match of a two-game suspension.
The sanction followed Monaco’s win over Strasbourg on 12 September, when Brunner celebrated a goal by making a throat-cutting gesture towards the opposing supporters. Ligue 1’s disciplinary committee imposed the ban.
An old Rio contest in a new setting
The personal record between the coaches belongs to Filipe Luís. Their only previous meeting as managers came almost exactly a year ago, on 15 October, in the 28th round of Brazil’s Série A.
Filipe Luís’s Flamengo won 3-0 away to Davide Ancelotti’s Botafogo at the Nilton Santos Stadium. Now, with Monaco and Lille ahead of the rest of the French field, their next meeting has a far more immediate consequence: control of the Ligue 1 summit.
