Ten-man Lyon hold nerve to sink Marseille in Cup

Lyon took another step towards a successful defence of their French Cup crown with a narrow 1-0 home victory over rivals Marseille on Wednesday that took them into the round of 16.

The reigning French champions will face fellow top-flight side Lille in the next round, with the tie set to take place on the weekend of March 3-4.

Claude Puel’s side enjoyed a perfect start to the tie at their Stade Gerland home thanks to some calamitous play from visiting defender Ronald Zubar.

With less than two minutes on the clock the Marseille centre-half’s attempted pass was cut out on the edge of the penalty area by Lyon’s Argentine midfielder Cesar Delgado, who squared for top-scorer Karim Benzema to tuck home unchallenged from close range.

Zubar almost made amends minutes later when he met Karim Ziani’s corner with a firm header that drifted narrowly over Hugo Lloris’s crossbar.

Marseille were then dealt a further blow when their Ivory Coast striker Bakary Kone had to be stretchered off after being kneed in the head in an accidental collision with Lloris.

Benzema came inches away from extending Lyon’s lead in the opening exchanges of the second period when his sweet left-footed effort struck the outside of Steve Mandana’s right-hand post before bouncing to safety.

Marseille were toiling, but the momentum swung in their favour shortly after the hour mark when Lyon’s Kader Keita was shown a second yellow card for flinging a hand in the face of Marseille’s Brazilian forward Brandao.

Lyon captain Juninho almost made the game safe when he crashed a free-kick against Mandana’s crossbar with 10 minutes to play, as the hosts continued to threaten on the counter-attack.

But Marseille finally began to make their man advantage count in the game’s final stages, with Nigerian full-back Taye Taiwo twice testing Lloris with trademark strikes from distance.

The visitors then spurned a superb chance to equalise deep into injury time when Lloris sprang from his line alertly to deny substitute Sylvain Wiltord after he had been teed up by Brandao.