Reinaldo lifts Paris SG to victory
PARIS, France (Reuters) -- Paris-St Germain, inspired by Brazilian forward Reinaldo, beat Racing Strasbourg 3-2 on Wednesday to pull level with second-placed Olympique Lyon in Ligue 1.
Monaco lead with 36 points from 15 games followed by champions Lyon on 30 -- neither team played on Wednesday ahead of next week's Champions League matches.
PSG are third on goal difference while Lens, who beat bottom side Toulouse 2-1, have 28 points from 16 matches.
After their 1-0 "floodlight robbery" win at Olympique Marseille at the weekend, PSG went 1-0 down in the 14th minute when Serbia and Montenegro striker Danijel Ljuboja scored with a free kick around the wall.
Ljuboja's compatriot Branko Boskovic quickly equalised and Reinaldo, who arrived this season at PSG as World Cup-winner Ronaldinho departed for Barcelona, finished off a fine move 15 minutes into the second half.
The Brazilian then set up Portugal's Pauleta for PSG's third. The Parc des Princes crowd had a late shock when Abdelilah Fahmi pulled one back for Strasbourg but they have now gone seven games without a win.
AJ Auxerre stayed in seventh place after a 1-0 win over Le Mans who could not build on their surprise 4-0 thrashing of Montpellier at the weekend.
Led by the league's leading scorer Djibril Cisse, Auxerre threatened to tear the visitors apart in the early stages but they had to be content with an own goal from Yannick Fischer in the 19th minute following a corner.
Lille finally won a game after 12 successive failures, a creditable 2-0 victory at home to Nantes who, with 22 points, have lost touch with the leading group of seven.
Toulouse slipped to the bottom below Le Mans after their last match and they suffered another 2-1 defeat to Lens. The home side's chances were not helped by a red card for Christophe Avezac in the 36th minute.
The game between Montpellier and Sochaux was called off because of heavy rain in southern France.
Montpellier said their stadium had been hit by unprecedented flooding which was much worse than that of December 2002 which caused it to be closed for a month.
The game against Olympique Marseille on December 13 is also off.
