Dortmund-Bayern, Barça-Real, Milan-Inter… If there is one player who knows about hot derby action at OM, it is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The 34-year-old Gabonese international striker (74 caps, 30 goals) has traveled all over Europe, from Dortmund to Barcelona, via Arsenal and Chelsea, playing in the hottest matches on the Old Continent. The former Green is also a regular in matches between ASSE and Lyon in France. For Jean-Louis Gasset, Aubam’s experience will not be a luxury to aim for an “exploit” against the Parisian rival, this Sunday (8:45 p.m.), during the 27th day of Ligue 1. A Classic which can allow the ‘OM to make the people of Marseille happy and take valuable points with a view to a potential accession to the Champions League (the Ligue 1 ranking here), or send Marseille to a third setback in a row after a series of five victories following Gasset’s taking office.
Aubameyang, however, does not only represent an experience asset. It’s much more than that. Dixit Gasset, “he’s THE player. In all teams, you have THE player. You put THE player where he likes, and then you build the team. It’s the person who makes us play well, who scores the goals, if we have to work he comes back to work… It’s generosity itself. But he is THE player in the squad,” explained the Marseille coach. And added: “It must be protected, even in the right place so that it keeps its juice to make the difference. I knew him, I had spoken with friends who trained him, I knew where he likes to play, where he likes to leave. And I went from there.” The base.
Inducted a little over a month ago at the head of the Marseille club, Jean-Louis Gasset immediately knew how to get the best out of the former Milan player, where Aubameyang had rubbed shoulders with a certain… Gennaro Gattuso. “When I knew him at Milan, he was a child. He was 17 years old and I already had two children,” recalled the Italian technician at the start of the season, after Aubameyang’s first goal in the league with OM. “When young people see players like him who give their all, they can understand football,” added Marcelino’s successor in Marseille.
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This goal against Le Havre (3-0) allowed the person concerned to “open the floodgates, it was a little rusty”, even if he had previously already scored in the Champions League play-offs, a vain double against the Panathinaikos. Issue ? The ex-Stéphanois seemed rusty for a long time before finding a rhythm, scoring a series of goals and inheriting the title of Ligue 1 player in December. “It wasn’t easy, it was complicated,” he said on Amazon Prime Video after inheriting this UNFP Trophy. It was hard to find the rhythm, it was the hardest in fact, after a season without playing. When there is a player like me who arrives in Marseille, there is obviously a wait… We cannot achieve unanimity, but there is work, determination. And obviously the goals as number nine. This is what matters a lot when you are an attacker. What we expect of you is to score. That’s what you should do.” And he’s doing it quite well at the moment, having scored eight goals and provided two assists under the direction of Gasset, in seven matches.
Liberated, delivered… “Individually, when you are an attacker, you are happy when you score (smile). And even more so when everything that happened happened… We just want to show… that I didn’t come here to do I don’t know what. When things go bad, I’m the first to not feel good. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, I would have stopped playing football (smile)”, he smiled at the end of the year, claiming to be the first to express his “self-criticism” and admitting to having been “touched” by the reviews. “I’m not having the start to the season that I was hoping to have, I’m in trouble,” he said at the time.
That was before. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has rediscovered the qualities for which OM bet on him in the off-season, those which make him the highest paid player in Ligue 1 with Wissam Ben Yedder outside the Parisian squad. In all competitions, he has 23 goals and nine assists in 39 matches. Not bad for a grandpa who some rumors announced was leaving a few weeks after his arrival last summer… “Don’t start using my name and make up stories please thank you”, he corrected on social networks, he who has found a smile again. “It’s my nature. If I’m not happy, it will show right away. Everyone is used to seeing me smiling and that’s a strength. David Luiz (his teammate in the ranks of Chelsea, Editor’s note) often told me in training: “if you are smiling, happy, we will win, you will score”, he smiled recently.
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One thing is certain: no one imagines pushing him towards the exit in Marseille anymore. And he himself cannot imagine leaving OM. Not without winning a title. “Leaving here without a trophy, I would be very disappointed,” he assures on Amazon, he who signed until 2026. To achieve this this season, however, it would be necessary to achieve an incredible feat in the Europa League. We would first have to rule out Benfica in the quarter-finals, then Liverpool or Atalanta in the semi-finals and Milan, Roma, Leverkusen or West Ham in the final. Obstacle course… No title at stake this Sunday, but a success against Paris would be worth all the gold in the world for the supporters. A success which will inevitably require a great performance from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the only Marseille player whose CV could make many Paris Saint-Germain players green with envy. It’s up to him to show that he is at the level.