Paris St Germain, as usual, flattered to deceive on the pitch but it is their recent troubles off it that have hit them hardest while Marseille remain a shadow of their once all-conquering teams of the early 1990s.

In terms of crises, PSG's is the gravest. They finished a lowly ninth last season but saved their campaign with a cup victory and place in the UEFA Cup -- defeating Marseille in the final and denying them entry into Europe's second competition.

But this season has been nothing short of abysmal and with one match to go to the halfway point of the season, the capital giants sit two points and three places above the relegation zone.

But it has been an even more dismal story off the pitch.

At the end of November a fan was shot dead by an off-duty police officer outside the Parc des Princes after a UEFA Cup match against Hapoel Tel Aviv.

The fan was part of an anti-semitic and racist chanting mob that attacked a Jewish fan of the Israeli side.

The officer came to his rescue and shot dead one of the hooligans.

That incident sparked a heated debate on football violence and racism in the country -- two themes often overlooked in a nation surrounded by more traditional sufferers of such ailments as the Netherlands, England and Germany.

For Marseille that Cup final defeat in early May and a subsequent defeat on the final day of the season saw them have to settle for a place in the much-derided Inter Toto Cup.

Things took a turn for the better in the off-season as the Mediterraneans kept the hungry vultures of Europe's top clubs away from their prize asset Franck Ribery.

That little victory seemed to pay off as Marseille started the season flying, keeping neck-and-neck with Lyon after six matches.

They also reached the UEFA Cup proper.

But, typically, it has been downhill ever since. They won five of those first six games and just three of the next 12, while crashing out of the UEFA Cup at the first hurdle.

As for Lyon, they simply keep getting better and better. They won a record fifth title in a row in May, finishing 15 points clear of nearest challengers Bordeaux.

And if that was not enough, they have already set the best start ever to a season this campaign, hold a daunting 17-point lead and need only 11 wins from their last 20 matches to break the record of 26 wins in a season.

For the second successive year they also topped a Champions League group containing Real Madrid and last season reached the quarterfinals of Europe's premier competition for the third time in a row.

But for a late lapse at AC Milan in the second leg of the quarterfinals, they might even have gone all the way.

Conquering Europe is the only challenge to Lyon these days.

As Le Mans coach Frederic Hantz said after his side were downed 1-0 by the champions on December 2: "Football is a game played by eleven players and at the end Lyon win."

Lyon's penultimate game before Christmas was a 4-0 hammering of their nearest challengers Lens, despite having all four of their strikers -- John Carew, Sylvain Wiltord, Fred and Karim Benzema -- out injured and playing winger Florent Malouda as a makeshift sole striker.

"Before the start of the season I said Lyon would win the league by 20 points," said Lens president Gervais Martel after the game.

"They already have (a lead of) 17 and we're not even halfway. They're a veritable war machine!"