End clap for Jean-Louis Gasset in the world of football. In contact with the football since 1974 – as a player then a coach – the 70-year-old man announced that he was ending his career on Sunday after OM’s trip to Le Havre. “Sunday is the last match of my career. That I stay in football, that my experience, my ideas and my networks are used is a possibility. I don’t know how to garden, I won’t have anything to do. But coach, it’s over. My decision is final. It’s a pleasure for me to have coached OM. I spent times at the Vélodrome where I had goosebumps. I want to win this last match to leave alone,” he announced this Friday at a press conference.
At the helm of the Olympian club since the end of February, the French technician managed to take Marseille to the semi-final of the Europa League and has good memories of this European campaign: “Positive memory, I have two. Against Villarreal, where we played the perfect match that all coaches dream of. And the little extra is the series of penalties against Benfica. I knew we had the men to be a hit. It will remain forever engraved in my memory. But also bad ones. Worst memory? It’s Wednesday, it’s Atalanta, it’s all the away matches where we can’t get any extra soul. It’s a nightmare.”
Jean-Louis Gasset also returned to the group he worked with for four months. “It’s charisma that counts in Marseille, personality. To have a competitive team, here more than elsewhere, you need a little more. The group built here is a group of good guys, but it lacks leaders, it lacks grinta. You have to know this and build taking into account this very important parameter. This club and this city deserve a great team, he confided before discussing the place of young people within the squad. This is the phenomenon of big clubs, all big clubs have difficulty bringing up their young players. Depending on the situation, there are perhaps times in the life of a club where we can rely on young people. We can have a season with 16 pros and young people who we give space to. It’s all about space for the little ones.”
Upon leaving the press conference room, the Montpellier native was applauded by all the journalists and people present.