Paris Saint-Germain are on course to earn qualification for the Champions League knockout stages after taking a 1-0 lead over APOEL into half time at the Parc des Princes.
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Last year's Ligue 1 champions went into the game a point ahead of Barcelona and it took just a minute for Laurent Blanc's side to take a step towards maintaining that advantage.
A cross from Lucas Moura was whipped into the penalty area to Edinson Cavani, who controlled the ball before volleying towards goal which Urko Pardo allowed to go through him and into the net.
PSG appeared to be in full control but APOEL should have equalised shortly before the quarter-hour mark when former Chelsea man Nuno Morais sent the ball over the crossbar after it had fallen invitingly for him inside the six-yard box.
It didn't take long for the hosts' response, though, and Cavani was unfortunate not to add his second goal of the night after latching on to a pass from Moura but his header struck the base of the post.
The pressure continued to come from the home side and Pardo twice came to the rescue to deny Moura, who was providing frequent problems to the APOEL defence.
The Cypriot team had no answer to the quality of PSG and they would have been grateful to reach half time having only conceded the one goal.
Darren Plant
