It is a failure that could hurt Olympique de Marseille very badly, both sportingly and financially. While the Marseille club was guaranteed to be returned to the Europa League with third place in Group D of the Champions League, Tuesday November 1, it conceded defeat in the last moments of its match against Tottenham (1-2) . A big mistake, which forced the Marseillais to say goodbye to Europe for this season, when they had moved forward at the very end of the game.
In the 90th + 3 minute of the match, Eintracht Frankfurt had already won on the lawn of Sporting (2-1) in the other match of the group. Marseille, held in check by Tottenham at the Stade Vélodrome, then sought to score a second goal. Even if it means getting feverish in defense. “If we had known that we were qualified [pour la Ligue Europa]we would not have boarded“, regretted Mattéo Guendouzi after the meeting, at the microphone of Canal +.
The Marseille midfielder, like his teammate Amine Harit, regretted a “blatant lack of communication“.”There was a misunderstanding, with the noise there was, with everyone making gestures, we misunderstood each other“, explained Guendouzi. “On the ground, we did not know. But on the bench, people knew“, assured Chancel Mbemba, scorer this evening against the Spurs.
Faced with the scenario at the very end of the match, the Marseille staff seems to have chosen not to transmit the information to the players after not having succeeded in making them understand the message at first. “They didn’t hear, there was a lot of noise. So we did not talk about the results. We wanted them to stay in the game“, explained Igor Tudor, the coach of OM, at the microphone of RMC Sport.
“We deserved to win…”
“There was too much noise, they didn’t hear what I was saying…”
Igor Tudor after #OMTOT #UCL ️ pic.twitter.com/lKvDDryKSa
– CANAL+ Foot (@CanalplusFoot) November 1, 2022
“It’s hard because within ten seconds, we could have continued to play in the European Cup. It is a mistake that hurts. To tell you that I am not disgusted that this information has not been reported to the field, that would be lying to you.“, explained a very affected Amine Harit at the end of the match. The Marseille group will have to recover from this blow, after having conceded a fifth defeat in the last seven games.
OM therefore say goodbye to the European Cup, but also to a good fortune. The Marseille club sat on nearly 20 million euros by missing out on qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League. He would also have received money to participate in the play-offs of the Europa League in February. A course in C3, like that of 2018 with a final for the club, would have been well paid. This lack of communication is definitely costing OM dearly.