2023-08-09 20:50:29
Marseille lost 1-0 at Panathinaikos in Athens in the first leg of the third preliminary round of the Champions League on Wednesday night. An early blow for the Marseille club, put in great difficulty before the return match.
Published on: 08/09/2023 – 22:50
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Bad luck or descent into hell? In immense difficulty in all areas, new coach Marcelino’s OM were beaten 1-0 on Wednesday August 9 in Athens by Panathinaikos in the third preliminary round of the Champions League, and are already in a very perilous position before the return match.
“The Champions League is very important to us, we all have to work to be there every year,” Marseille president Pablo Longoria repeated on Monday August 7.
But the third place won at the end of last season forced his team to make their way to the pools via two terribly perilous preliminary rounds and Wednesday’s defeat already puts OM with their backs to the wall, forced to react strongly in six days at home. .
Transition difficile
“We have to be ready,” the new Marseille coach Marcelino repeated to the press on Tuesday; “Of course we are ready”, for his part had launched the evening captain Samuel Gigot: but it was not entirely true and it was seen.
Still digesting the transition between the furious football of Igor Tudor and that much more calm of Marcelino, the Marseillais seemed lost on Wednesday in Athens, without tactical certainties and physically struggling.
There was however a real curiosity to see this team once more redone from floor to ceiling this summer, to discover these new faces, with five rookies lined up from the start, and this new style.
But the start of the Marcelino era was therefore very worrying and we saw in Athens that the Asturian had had too little time to settle his ideas.
Result, in an atmosphere very far from being as frightening as announced in the small Apostolos Nikolaïdis stadium, beyond the decati, OM with Marcelino sauce seemed very far from the mark.
Kondogbia expelled
In a 4-4-2 almost too clear, with lines drawn as a rule, the Marseillais did not build the slightest action during the first 20 minutes, spent running behind the ball, which the Greeks did not then do much.
In the 22nd minute, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang placed a header well over the bar then, in the 45th minute, Azzedine Ounahi, in great difficulty on the left throughout the game, finally found the frame for a curling shot law.
In the meantime, Geoffrey Kondogbia had been warned in the 30th second by an easy cardboard referee and several players had already seemed very struggling, such as rookies Iliman Ndiaye or Ismaïla Sarr.
The second period was even worse, with only one positive action in the 50th minute, with two dangerous strikes in quick succession from Ounahi and then Jonathan Clauss.
But OM above all suffered enormously, with in particular a very, very weak time around the hour mark, which woke up the Greek public and resulted in the expulsion of Kondogbia (65th) for a second yellow this time indisputable .
Then, the Marseillais did nothing more than defend, including the offensive entrants Amine Harit and François-Régis Mughe, hoping that the relative offensive quality of the “Pana” would save them.
But the players in the green jersey succeeded in a constructed action, with a nice discount from Ioannidis for the Brazilian Bernard, who deceived Pau Lopez (1-0, 83rd).
In Athens, OM dreamed of launching a European marathon that would take them at least to the group stage, or even more, following coming close to qualifying for the round of 16 last season.
His sporting ambitions depend on it and his economic health as well. But this will require doing much better on Tuesday at the Stade Vélodrome.
With AFP
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