Nice and Saint-Etienne saw their Champions League hopes diminish Saturday with disappointing performances in the French league. Nice lost 1-0 at Nantes, while Saint-Etienne could only manage a 0-0 draw against Toulouse. Saint-Etienne, which had captain Loic Perrin sent off late on, moved into fourth place thanks to goalkeeper Stephane Ruffier, who saved a fifth-minute penalty from Wissam Ben Yedder. Toulouse, which also had two first-half goals ruled out for offside, remained in the relegation zone. It is three points from safety with two rounds remaining. Saint-Etienne is fourth, a point behind Lyon and Monaco which host Ajaccio and Guingamp respectively later. Nice is a point further back, following Adrien Thomasson's winner for Nantes. Adrien Thomasson fired home the only goal after 68 minutes at the Stade de la Beaujoire as Nice was punished for failing to properly clear a cross. Nice had ridden its luck until that point, with Nantes hitting the woodwork on three occasions — once through Emiliano Sala's first-half header before US international Alejandro Bedoya struck the post and then the bar in the space of five minutes. On Friday, Paris St Germain's Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored two goals and set up another as the runaway Ligue 1 champion thrashed Stade Rennes 4-0 on a wet evening in Paris. Four second-half goals at the Parc des Princes allowed PSG to equal its own record for the most points in a Ligue 1 season — 89 — with two games remaining. Ibrahimovic joined in a second-half scoring frenzy when he picked up a cross from Argentine Angel di Maria and sent it beyond the reach of goalkeeper Benoit Costil in the 54th minute. Four minutes earlier, the Swedish striker had helped to set up Maxwell for the opening goal and Ibrahimovic scored again himself with a left-footed drive in the 78th to take his league-leading tally to 34, his best ever in a season. Edinson Cavani added the fourth goal in injury time as PSG all but extinguished the seventh-placed visitors' hopes of playing in Europe next season.
