Marseille vs Montpellier

Stade Vélodrome is the venue as Marseille and Montpellier go head-to-head in a handsomely-looking Coupe de France last-16 tie.

Marseille have hit a purple patch since the calendar year flipped to 2021, winning all but one of their four competitive matches (D1), including a scintillating 3-0 romping of lower-league side Chauvigny in the previous Coupe de France round. What’s more, since falling to a 2-1 home defeat to Brest in early December, ‘Les Phocéens’ have gone unbeaten in their last eight competitive games in a row (W6, D2), notably keeping five clean sheets in that period while conceding precisely once in the other three. By contrast, they have failed to keep Montpellier at bay in any of their last four Ligue 1 H2Hs, letting in an average of 1.75 goals per match.

On the other hand, Montpellier pulled off an action-packed 3-2 win over Monaco on the eve of the international break, ending a run of back-to-back Ligue 1 defeats. The visitors squeezed past fellow top-flight rivals Strasbourg 1-0 in the previous Coupe de France round back in early January, which remains their only clean sheet in five matches. Away from home, none of Montpellier’s last eight competitive fixtures have ended as a draw (W4, L4) since a 1-1 stalemate at Troyes in mid-September. Yet, a 3-1 win at Strasbourg of all teams in their most recent travel put their three-game winning streak on hostile turf to a halt.