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Marseille and Chelsea aim to finish on a high

Having booked their knockout berth on Matchday 5, Olympique de Marseille welcome Chelsea FC, the London side looking to become only the fifth team to win all six games in a UEFA Champions League group.

Marseille and Chelsea aim to finish on a high
Marseille and Chelsea aim to finish on a high ©UEFA.com

Olympique de Marseille secured second place in UEFA Champions League Group F on Matchday 5, which is just as well given their poor recent record against English visitors.

• The French champions have lost their last two home games against Premier League clubs and now welcome section winners Chelsea FC, who booked their place in the knockout rounds with two games to spare.

• The English titleholders have won their first five games; only AC Milan (1992/93), Paris Saint-Germain FC (1994/95), FC Spartak Moskva (1995/96) and FC Barcelona (2002/03) have recorded six victories in a UEFA Champions League group stage.

Past meetings
• First-half goals from captain John Terry and Nicolas Anelka helped Chelsea claim the points when the sides faced each other at Stamford Bridge on 28 September.

• Previously they had only met in the second group stage in 1999/2000, Chelsea's debut UEFA Champions League campaign. Marseille won 1-0 at home through a Robert Pirès goal while the English side turned round that scoreline in the return, Dennis Wise getting the winner. That was OM's only victory in the section while the English club reached the quarter-finals, eventually losing to Barcelona.

• The Matchday 2 defeat meant Marseille have come off worst in their last four games against English opponents. At home they went down to Liverpool FC in successive UEFA Champions League campaigns, losing 4-0 in 2007/08 and 2-1 in 2008/09. The French side had won their first five home ties with Premier League teams.

• In the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League semi-final against AS Monaco FC, Chelsea lost 3-1 away in the first leg and eventually bowed out 5-3 on aggregate. Their two subsequent visits to France in the competition's group stage brought a 3-0 win at PSG in 2004/05 and a 1-1 draw at FC Girondins de Bordeaux four years later.

Match background
• Marseille's Matchday 2 defeat at Stamford Bridge was preceded by a 1-0 home defeat by Spartak Moskva before they collected their first points – and goal – when Souleymane Diawara's second-half winner saw off MŠK Žilina's challenge.

• Before Matchday 4, OM had lost seven of their previous nine away games in the competition proper but improved that record in spectacular fashion with a 7-0 victory in Slovakia to establish a new mark for the biggest away win in the UEFA Champions League. André-Pierre Gignac scored three times and Lucho González twice.

• Didier Deschamps' side went on to win 3-0 at Spartak last time out to make sure of second place.

• Chelsea launched their campaign with a 4-1 win at Žilina before the Marseille victory. That was followed by away (2-0) and home (4-1) wins against Spartak and a 2-1 defeat of Žilina, the latter result extending Chelsea's run of unbeaten home games in the group stage to 23.

• The Žilina win also made sure Chelsea would finish as group winners for the sixth time in eight seasons.

Team ties
• Deschamps spent 1999/2000 with Chelsea, winning the FA Cup. He also played in both the aforementioned UEFA Champions League games against Marseille and was a team-mate of Terry.

• Deschamps coached Monaco to the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League final, beating Chelsea in the semi-finals. Édouard Cissé was part of the Monaco team.

• Didier Drogba had one season with Marseille in 2003/04, and was voted Ligue 1 Player of the Year by the French Professional Footballers' Union. In that season's UEFA Champions League he scored five goals, adding six more as the French side switched to the UEFA Cup and reached the final, losing to Valencia CF.

• Michael Essien had spells in France with SC Bastia (2000 to 2003) and Olympique Lyonnais (2003 to 2005) before signing for Chelsea.

• Diawara was part of the Bordeaux side that lost 4-0 at Stamford Bridge in the 2008/09 group stage and drew 1-1 in France. Anelka scored in each game.

• Cissé and Anelka were team-mates with PSG between 2000 and 2002, Gabriel Heinze joining them there in 2001/02.

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