Lionel Messi‘s highly-anticipated debut in “Classique” ended in a 0-0 draw between Marseille and 10-man Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday. The stalemate between the two bitter rivals reduced PSG’s lead over Lens at the top of the French league to seven points after 11 rounds.

The Parisian side had to play with 10 men after Achraf Hakimi was sent off in the 56th minute at the Velodrome Stadium in traditionally the biggest match in French football. Hakimi brought down Turkish winger Cengiz Under on a counterattack. 

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Neymar returned to the starting lineup after being out for weeks with an injury. Although he failed to make his mark before being substituted. 

Meanwhile, Messi had twin chances in the first half itself. The Argentine almost struck shortly before halftime when his left-footed shot from outside the area went wide and he had a close-range header saved in the 25th minute.

Both teams had a goal ruled out for offside by VAR in the first half — Marseille defender Luan Peres’ own-goal in the 14th after Neymar’s shot and Arkadiusz Milik’s low shot in the 21st.

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With 26 goals in Spanish “clásico” meetings between Barcelona and Real Madrid, Messi is the all-time leading scorer. On Sunday, host Barcelona lost its first clásico without Lionel Messi, falling 2-1 at home to Real Madrid. 

Lens defeated Metz 4-1 in other French league games, with winger Wesley Said scoring a first-half brace.

Lens also had goals from Ignatius Ganago and Przemyslaw Frankowski. Nice defeated Lyon 3-2 to go into third place, two points behind Lens.

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Also Sunday, Monaco beat Montpellier 3-1 and Rennes enjoyed a 1-0 home victory over Strasbourg. Lorient and Bordeaux drew 1-1, and Troyes won 2-1 at Reims.

On Saturday, defending champion Lille dropped more points after a 1-1 draw against Brest.

With inputs from the Associated Press