Marseille took charge of their Uefa Cup tie with Zenit St Petersburg as they ran out 3-1 winners in the first leg.

Zenit defeated 3-1 in first leg in France

Marseille took charge of their Uefa Cup tie with Zenit St Petersburg as they ran out 3-1 winners in the first leg. Lyon's defeat to Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League earlier in the week left Marseille as the last remaining French side in Europe. However, they kept the flag flying with a dominant performance against a Zenit St Petersburg team that will not start their domestic Russian season until later in March. Former Liverpool striker Djibril Cisse was the star with two goals and he opened the scoring in the 37th minute as he latched onto a long pass from Taye Taiwo and fired a low shot past Vyacheslav Malafeev.

Advantage

Mamadou Niang doubled Marseille's advantage three minutes into the second half with a curled shot from the edge of the area. Cisse then made it 3-0 on 55 minutes with an angled finish from Samir Nasri's pass. There was a late twist when Andrei Arshavin raced past Ronald Zubar down the left and coolly struck his shot beyond Sebastien Mate to give Zenit a crucial away goal. Zenit will now hope to build on that in the second leg but Marseille, who put out Spartak Moscow in the last round, will be firm favourites to progress to the quarter-finals.