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Olympique de Marseille begins a capital week between Wednesday’s trip to Lisbon to face Sporting Portugal and Sunday’s top match against PSG, during the “classic” of the French championship. Two matches that could stimulate or on the contrary derail the dynamics of Marseille for the rest of the season.
Champions League on Wednesday and PSG on Sunday. A more than copious menu awaits Olympique de Marseille this week. The way the Marseille team digests these two meetings risks being a clear indicator of what Igor Tudor and his men are capable of in C1 and in the French championship.
During their last appearances in the Champions League, OM carried their participation like a ball and chain. Between the 2011/2012, 2012/2013 and 2020/2021 seasons, the first French winner of the event also became the first team capable of stringing together 13 defeats in a row in the most prestigious of European competitions.
A first leg synonymous with hope
If his two inaugural defeats against Tottenham and Frankfurt raised fears of the worst, the clear victory obtained at the Vélodrome against Sporting left the Marseillais full of hope before his return leg against Sporting.
“We gave ourselves the chance to be able to bounce back in this group,” recalled OM coach Igor Tudor at a press conference. Indeed, in the very homogeneous group D, the only success of last Tuesday was enough for the Provençals to get back into the race for qualification after their two initial defeats.
The Marseillais are certainly still last, but only three lengths behind Sporting, leader, and one point behind the English and the Germans, who face each other on Wednesday in London. Hope therefore returned but OM know that it would not be reasonable to draw too many lessons from an irrational first leg played behind closed doors, which did not say much about the value of the two teams. .
“We played more than an hour at 11 against 10. The return match will be different, outside, with their audience. It will be very difficult”, had also warned Tudor from the final whistle.
In Marseille, the Spanish goalkeeper of Sporting, Antonio Adan, had written a good part of the history of the match by offering the goal of equalization to OM, then by being still very involved on the second, before completing his performance upside down by an expulsion even before half an hour of play.
An unexpected setback in the league
How to present yourself with confidence in Portugal? Not really, because hope precedes the fall. Inexplicably, Igor Tudor’s team suddenly went off the road on Saturday in the league with their first defeat of the season in L1, conceded at home against Ajaccio (2-1), red lantern at kick-off.
“I find it difficult to explain this defeat. In fact, we only played 15 minutes,” admitted the Croatian technician after the game.
So, simple unwelcome accident or real admission of weakness on the part of a team faced with a grueling schedule and which has won only two of its last five matches in all competitions?
Saturday’s huge underperformance is in any case a reminder that OM depended heavily on certain essential elements, such as Mattéo Guendouzi and Jonathan Clauss, poorly replaced at the Vélodrome and who could be back on Wednesday.
It also showed that certain supposed leaders, like Dimitri Payet or Gerson, were still far from the mark, that Tudor did not really have a plan B, neither in the system nor in the choice of men, and that the offensive potential of the he team behind handyman Alexis Sanchez was not very impressive.
In addition to the expected returns of Guendouzi and Clauss, Marseille will rely on the experience of Sanchez, Éric Bailly and Chancel Mbemba and on the cutting edge of Amine Harit and Cengiz Ünder. Their mission is to leave Lisbon with at least one point, before looking to Paris, Neymar, Mbappé, Messi and Sunday’s “classic”.
Because football is often a matter of dynamics: a success in the Champions League would give OM confidence for the clash against PSG. Conversely, a defeat, and it is with lowered heads that the Marseillais would arrive against their competitor in the championship. The Marseillais are warned to avoid seeing their good start to the season turn into blood sausage.
With AFP