The curtain has fallen. At the ambitious ball, OM tripped over the carpet. His wishful thinking for the final faded away. Mines of celebration are succeeded by mines of defeat. Held in check by Feyenoord (0-0), the Marseillais returned to their Orange Vélodrome locker room with their heads bowed. Groggy, annoyed, stripped of their designs for “glory”. The conclusion is cruel. Implacable. The spirit of the times is already busy in Provence. But OM will have the right and even the duty to feed all the regrets in the world for having made too many mistakes during the first leg, a week ago in Rotterdam (3-2).
The abandonment of the dream always represents a deep wound, of the order of the intimate. The march embodied by the 3rd in the Eredivisie (Dutch championship) ultimately proved too abrupt for the Phocaeans without any real order or collective balance. Waking up is inevitably bitter, painful. Rarely has failure generated so much resentment for a club in search of a trophy for 10 years now.
Because the possible accession to the final of the Europa League Conference had aroused immense and candid hope, barely tempered by the defensive errors deplored in the first leg. Here is Guendouzi and his band brought back to their daily domestic life. In this Ligue 1 where three stations from the finish line, they still camp in second position, light years from PSG, but only three lengths ahead of a duo formed by Rennes and Monaco.
Champions League operation
To reconnect with the lucrative Champions League in September, they will already have to rehash their disappointment and beat Lorient on Sunday. There will then come the time to do battle with Rennes, then Strasbourg. “We did nine months of high quality, if we miss three weeks, it will have been nine months for nothing. To have lived it, in 2018, to lose everything in a few days, it’s frustrating, horrible even, but that’s also football. These words of Dimitri Payet, dated April 30, take on a very particular resonance today. To further darken the picture, the Olympian strategist, visibly the victim of a muscle injury, had to abandon his partners prematurely this Thursday evening.
Elimination is just as disturbing as this defeat of emotion, as this renunciation of madness in the game, over an evening crossed by a few upheavals, a simple countdown, basically, until the moment when OM were going to take the door in an atmosphere deserted by magic but not by fury.
What did the Marseillais miss against the Batavians? In short, a bit of everything. Their recurring difficulties in making the game at home this season despite sterile dominance. The inability, too, to have the right gesture, the laser pass, the one likely to break the lines and open up the opposing block. Accuracy, finally, in the last gesture, and promptness. All this could not be solved in one evening, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, even if the spirit was there.