Getting Up Front and Personal with Kylian Mbappe

While his old pals were enjoying the delights of a Florida winter toiling against the local USL club, Ambroise Oyongo had a rather busier evening.

Parc des Princes was the venue for the clash of Top v Sixth in Ligue 1, as Oyongo’s Montpellier took on the runaway leaders PSG.

With the former Impact man playing in the left wing-back position, things were going well for the visitors right up until half-time. Flourent Mollet had equalized, Layvin Kurzawa’s opening goal for PSG on 31 mins, and the interval approached.

Enter Angel Di Maria fresh from his part in the dismantling of former club Manchester United last midweek, the Argentinian front man planted a sumptuous direct free-kick past Lecomte in the Montpellier goal. 2-1! The game was one minute into injury time at the end of the half.

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Oyongo, who played the entire game, and his pals now had an uphill struggle, one they wrestled with manfully - Montpellier unusually for a side playing away to PSG had 15 shots on goal - until the cracks begun to appear, PSG having goals disallowed for offside in the 69th (Mbappe) and 71st minutes (Choupo-Moting) as the pressure increased.

Within 8 minutes of that second disallowed goal 2-1 had become 5-1, PSG registering three times in 6 minutes - Nkunku (73), Hilton (og) (78) and Mbappe applying the icing on the cake (79).

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Paris consolidated their position 15 points clear of Lille, with a game less played. Montpellier reman in sixth, Oyongo’s team still harvesting real ambitions of a Champions League spot in 2019/20.

They sit two points behind each of Olympique Marseille and St-Etienne in 4th and 5th with a slightly better goal difference. The run-in is not so kind to La Paillaide however. They have away trips to Olympique Lyonnais as well as another meeting with PSG, although this time at home. But the games that are likely to decide their European fate are two of the last three in their fixture list, away to both Marseille and St-Etienne.

If Ambroise Oyongo does make it to Champions League next season, he and his Montpellier team will have done it the hard way.