Bounce back, work, forget, digest: shaken by their elimination against Panathinaikos on Tuesday in the preliminary round of the Champions League, OM must put Europe aside for a few weeks and react in the league, from Friday in Metz.
Within seconds, OM’s next European meeting was set for Tuesday, for a first leg play-off in Braga. Then everything went awry, Mattéo Guendouzi conceded a penalty and missed his shot on goal, and the next time Marseille hear from Europe will be in the Europa League draw on September 1. “It’s hard, it’s hard,” summed up Marseille president Pablo Longoria after the match, more annoyed by the refereeing of the two matches against the Greeks – which he told UEFA in writing – only by his players, to whom he had “nothing to reproach, neither in attitude, nor in behavior, nor in the game in general”. “The night and the next day were complicated, recognized Jonathan Clauss on Thursday. It needed a day of digestion, a day of mourning, as the coach said. And now we have to move on.”
If an accumulation of unfavorable game facts led to the elimination of Tuesday, the Marseillais can at least, to move on, rely on many positive elements. Their performance was indeed better than against Reims three days earlier (2-1 victory) and infinitely superior to that of Athens’ horrible first leg (1-0 defeat).
It is on this progress that the new coach Marcelino will want to rely to prepare for Friday’s trip to Metz, even if the spirits were still heavier than the legs on Tuesday leaving the Stade Vélodrome. “You have to digest, forget quickly and recover, but we don’t have time because we’re playing in two days,” noted captain Valentin Rongier.
The question of the lack of time was the great leitmotif of the start of the Marseille season and everyone’s fears proved to be justified. OM were not ready at all during the first leg and they probably still lacked a bit of fuel and experience to manage the end of the second leg, when qualification was one step away. With a shortened preparation, a frenetic transfer window as always and a team that only remotely resembles that of June, this start to the season at a brisk pace, with three matches in seven days and four in ten days counting that of Metz was probably too brutal for the Marseillais.
“If we had won 4-0 against Pana, as we deserved, everything would be perfect and there would be no question about our preparation. This elimination should not change our path”, yet relativized Marcelino Thursday. “We have two options: complain and give up, or get up and fight for other goals. That’s what we’re going to do,” he added.
After his trip to Lorraine, OM will in any case have a little more time to breathe and assimilate the demands of the Spanish technician. But that’s no consolation, players regretting the Champions League and leaders the 15 or 20 million additional guaranteed revenue that comes with it. “The project remains the same. We had anticipated this scenario,” assured Longoria, who said he had prepared several budgetary hypotheses. But OM still have to recruit, the first matches of the season having confirmed some shortages within the workforce, such as a left winger or substitute full-backs.
Without the Champions League, recruits will be less easy to convince or of a lower level. But it is not forbidden for the Marseillais to show in L1 and from Friday in Metz that they remain strong and ambitious.
