2023-09-21 21:37:07
Football, finally, as a parenthesis in the “sacred turmoil” that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang spoke regarding on Wednesday…
OM in fact arrived in Amsterdam without a designated coach and with interim Jacques Abardonado on the bench, without a management team either, since president Pablo Longoria and his closest collaborators remained in Marseille, determined to take a step back following the very tense meeting during which their departure was demanded on Monday by representatives of supporter groups.
The face to face opened the deep crisis in which OM is plunged and from which Thursday’s result will certainly not rescue it. But the Marseillais at least leave the Netherlands with a point, a little pride and a slight hope of being able to also resist Paris SG on Sunday.
To prepare for his business in the city of total football, Abardonado had only one training session and had asked his players to stay “focused on the pitch”. It wasn’t easy, though, and the start of the match suggested that the OM players were also at the bottom of the hole.
Ounahi relaunched
Because might OM fall even lower than the abyss reached in the 20th minute? The Marseille club was then trailing 2-0, weighed down by terrible individual and collective weaknesses.
In the 9th minute, the first blow fell on a beginner’s error from Chancel Mbemba, trapped by the rebound on a clearance from the Ajax goalkeeper, and which let Carlos Borges slip into an easy duel once morest Pau Lopez.
Barely more than ten minutes later, from a corner, Steven Berghuis punished OM once more, guilty of a marking error like Abardonado must not have seen often, even when he was in charge of the club’s U17s ( 2-0, 20th).
But when they might have sunk definitively, the Marseillais reacted superbly, helped by the spectacular weakness of the opposing defense.
The system imagined by Abardonado, in 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 depending on the positioning of Azzedine Ounahi, completely left aside by Marcelino, then took on its full meaning, with a courageous half hour and lively, much more convincing than the stiff football of the Spanish technician.
Double for Aubameyang
Marseille was first rewarded for its attitude with a very nice goal from Jonathan Clauss, following good work from Amine Harit (2-1, 23rd). Then following having missed a lot once more, Aubameyang finally scored, concluding with a strike at the near post a new action led by Harit (2-2, 38th).
In the second period, the pattern was identical, with a third goal for Ajax, scored by Taylor from a rebound between the legs of Pau Lopez following another overflow from the very dangerous Borges (3-2, 52nd).
In the 67th minute, Lopez then narrowly saved the 4-2 following yet another gross error from Mbemba, who is really no longer the player he was a year ago.
But once once more, OM came back, Aubameyang, who has still not scored in Ligue 1, scoring a double (3-3, 78th), as he had already done in the return match once morest Panathinaikos.
This duel of seriously ill people, each as fragile defensively as the other, might then have tipped one way or the other but it remained balanced.
“Pancho” Abardonado experienced it intensely, jumping in his technical zone and constantly encouraging his team. On Sunday, he will be there once more at the Parc des Princes, where a point would still be welcomed as a blessing. OM really doesn’t have enough certainty to be difficult.
1695351509
#point #good
