Football: Marseilles coach quits after home misfortune

THE MARSEILLES coach, Rolland Courbis, has resigned following his side's 2-0 defeat at home to Lazio in the Champions' League.

The club's reserve team coach Bernard Casoni succeeds Courbis and should be in charge of the French side when they take on Chelsea at the Stade Velodrome on 29 February.

"I'm tired, I need a rest," Courbis said. "I promised [club owner] Robert Louis Dreyfus not to make any comment now as the club have an important match on Saturday," he added. "Casoni is the best solution. He knows the club and the players well. My only regret is not to have done better."

The club have struggled in the French league this season and were beaten by goals from Dejan Stankovic and Sergio Conceicao as they made a disappointing start to the second phase of the Champions' League against Lazio on Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, Fiorentina will not be thrown out of the Champions' League despite reports of racist chanting and fireworks being thrown during the 2-0 win over Manchester United. Uefa has received reports from officials at the game in Florence but there has been no mention of racist taunting. However, the Italian club could face a fine after fans lit fireworks in the stadium. "Punishment will be decided by the Control and Disciplinary body which meets on 16 December," a Uefa spokesman said. "They will base any decision on reports from the Uefa delegate, the referee and the observer. If Fiorentina are punished, it will be financial but there is no chance of the club being thrown out of the competition."

The Florence club were ejected from last season's Uefa Cup after fans threw a firework at the fourth official during their game with Grasshopper Zurich. At the time, Fiorentina were playing their games at Bari after Uefa barred them from their ground when fans threw missiles at Barcelona players the season before.

A second-half strike from the Croatian Mario Stanic gave the Uefa Cup holders Parma to a 2-1 win over Austria's Sturm Graz 2-1 in their third- round first-leg match yesterday.

The Italian side took the lead in the 16th minute when Stanic spotted Marco Di Vaio's diagonal run into the penalty area and delivered a pinpoint pass. Di Vaio finished neatly with the outside of his right foot.

Sturm drew level six minutes later when Ivica Vastic found Markus Schopp with a clever through ball and Schopp lifted the ball over the Parma goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon.

Parma were fielding an unfamiliar line-up, with French midfielder Alain Boghossian and Italy winger Paolo Vanoli both injured and four internationals rested. In the 61st minute, two of their replacements combined to give Parma the lead.

Montano found Stanic on the edge of the Sturm penalty area and the Croatian bustled past two defenders to slot the ball past Josef Schicklgruber. Sturm gave Parma a reminder the game was not over when Roman Mahlich put in Vastic whose chip over Buffon was only just wide.

The Austrians came close again seven minutes from time when a long range effort from Martens took a deflection and Buffon did well to tip the looping shot over the bar.

Slavia Prague trounced Steaua Bucharest 4-1 in their first-leg, third- round match. First to score was Richard Dostalek in the first minute, and again in the 47th.

Pavel Horvath scored in the 35th minute when the referee overlooked what looked to be a clear offside position, while in the 56th minute, Tomas Dosek scored from a pass from Ludek Zelenka. Steaua's consolation goal came from Ionut Lutu in the 81st minute.