Is this the last chance match for Olympique de Marseille? It strongly resembles it. Relegated to seven points from fourth place occupied by their evening opponent, LOSC, the Marseille team (7th) has the opportunity, this Friday (9:00 p.m.), at the opening of the 28th day of Ligue 1, to relaunch (somewhat little) in the race for qualifying places for the next edition of the Champions League, its objective at the start of the season.
Suffice it to say that this meeting is of particular importance for the people of Marseillais. “We are seven points away and we know that tomorrow is a very important game for us in terms of points and standings, so we are really focused on getting those three points and then we will take the games one after the other », declared Ulisses Garcia this Thursday afternoon, at a press conference, in comments reported by Le Phocéen.
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For Jean-Louis Gasset, this poster clearly promises to be decisive for the rest of the season. “We must regain the ascendant, to relaunch a positive dynamic. We had a very high peak at the start, then a slightly lower peak in two league games. Tomorrow, we will have to take action, confided the Marseille coach this Thursday to journalists. They are the last team ranked above us away. So if we have a chance to come back a little, we have already lost three times, but against teams lower ranked than us. It’s a crucial match, the players are aware of it, because we still have our future in our hands.”
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Concretely, in the event of a setback, Olympique de Marseille would (undoubtedly) say goodbye to the Champions League. Pablo Fonseca is well aware of this. And for the Mastiffs, the challenge of the match is precisely to ensure that the Phocéens can no longer worry them: “I only want to think about the three points, but if we win it will be difficult for Marseille to catch up ten points behind. We only have seven matches to play, if we lose points, it will be more difficult,” explained the Lille coach this Thursday at a press conference.
But if they left the Decathlon Arena with a defeat, Jean-Louis Gasset and his men could perhaps even give up on Europe altogether since OGC Nice (5th, 43 points) and RC Lens ( 6th, 42 points), who respectively face Stade de Reims (Sunday, 3:00 p.m.) and Le Havre this weekend (Saturday, 5:00 p.m.), would have the opportunity to increase their lead over them.
To win, the Olympians will have a lot to do. On the one hand, they will have to regain confidence, having suffered two setbacks in Ligue 1, including a defeat (0-2) at home during the Classic…while being in numerical superiority. On the other hand, they are still faced with a large number of injuries with, among others, Chancel Mbemba, Jonathan Clauss, and Ismaïla Sarr: “Despite this, we continue to work, we modify the team. The players are aware that we need to obtain a result tomorrow,” Jean-Louis Gasset insisted.
Finally, getting a positive result on the LOSC pitch is no easy feat. The Mastiffs are almost intractable in their enclosure: “They are the first team at home. They took 30 points out of 46. So in their stronghold there, they are good. It’s up to us to get through this stage, we have to restart something,” recalled the Marseille coach. To achieve their goals, the Marseillais will need a very good Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabonese, who literally carried the Canebière club on his shoulders for several weeks, was “mute” during the last two Ligue 1 matches. Will he find his “voice” against Lille? Answer this Friday evening.
