In general, when OM throws a tantrum, it’s fireworks. Like in February 2021, when a few cypress trees burned by smoke bombs caused the departure of Jacques-Henri Eyraud. Last September, it was once again at the Commanderie that the situation escalated between the supporters and Pablo Longoria, who had just become president after the 2021 rebellion, and who then threatened to resign. A tense meeting which caused the departure of the then coach, Marcelino, and lastingly weighed down the club’s season.
Called to the helm, Gennaro Gattuso has since tried to right the course of a Marseille ship which is still swaying, and which does not know where it is going. Eliminated from the French Cup and seventh in Ligue 1, five points from the qualifying places for the next Champions League, the Marseillais must beat Monaco on Saturday to stay in the race. Except that OM is moving on a tightrope, weakened by chronic instability at all levels.
Change is all the time
Because if Gattuso has provided the essentials by qualifying his troops for the Europa League play-offs, the Italian has still not found the formula to give OM the means to achieve their ambitions in the game. Four players in defense, then three, then four. Two in attack, then one, then two again: the Italian fumbles, without much success.
“I haven’t seen a reference match, a full match. At the 60th, you know there is a break. There is no framework. Four, five players are holding up: Pau Lopez, Jordan Veretout, Valentin Rongier but he is injured, Jonathan Clauss, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and that’s it.”dissects Marc Libbra, the former striker who played 149 games with OM.
Sportingly, the situation has not worsened since September, but it has not improved either in a club which risks, in the event of a poor performance against Monaco, experiencing a blank season. Quite a sporting downgrade for OM who, under Sampaoli and Tudor, had once again become a serious competitor for PSG, and had scored two podiums in a row for the first time in twelve years. “Tudor and Sampaoli, what they created in terms of desire and courage, it was fantastic. Today, Gattuso doesn’t work”worries Marc Libbra.
“The fans aren’t crazy: they have the impression that the guys aren’t moving forward, aren’t giving themselves, and they’re bored. Boredom is deadly in football.”
Marc Libbraat franceinfo: sport
Like many, the former Marseille striker believes that the non-qualification for the Champions League in August, against Panathinaikos, killed the Olympian season. Except that this sporting aspect is only the visible part of the evil which has been eating away at Olympique de Marseille for almost a year. Because if the Marseille ship is rocking so much, it is because of chronic instability at all levels. Within the squad, firstly, with a constant shuffle of players, and the departures of several executives appreciated by the public (Payet, Guendouzi, Ünder, etc.).
“At the beginning, Pablo Longoria was a miracle worker who recovered players, and then he lost his mojo. This incessant turnover is not possible. Lodi is the perfect example.”, summarizes Marc Libbra, taking the example of Renan Lodi, who arrived last summer in Marseille and already sold this winter. Since 2021, 35 players have arrived, 29 have left: “It seems difficult to me to collaborate with someone who does so much trading, business on the football system”regrets Libbra.
If the first transfer windows of the Longoria era, carried out with pieces of string, had ignited the public, the latter now seems tired of the club’s sporting short-termism. Especially since, over the past year, Pablo Longoria has moved to the second phase of his plan by investing significant sums in the transfer market. Problem: the players concerned (Vitinha, Iliman Ndiaye, Ismaïla Sarr, etc.) did not meet expectations.
Instability at all levels
“The problem is that Longoria doesn’t seem to want to build over time. This is the Football Manager generation, who would like to change their team as easily as playing video games”, tackles a former employee of the club. The observation is also the same for the coaches: Sampaoli, Tudor, Marcelino, Gattuso… Four coaches in three years, not counting the temporary workers, three of whom left on their own. Which did not help OM find stability, and which also forced the president to adapt the squad to his new coach each time.
Suffered or not, this short-termism is not limited to the locker room. While the recruitment unit has seen several of its members move to Olympique Lyonnais, the management team has also seen its share of movements in recent seasons. Targeted by supporters in September, Pablo Longoria’s bodyguard (Javier Ribalta, Pedro Iriondo and David Friio) left the boat in recent weeks. A trio which had earned the president accusations of uprooting, surrounded by his “clan of Spaniards.”
And this even if the president repatriated Jean-Pierre Papin, legend of the club, as advisor, before doing the same thing with Mehdi Benatia, trained at OM and today sports advisor. “At the beginning, Longoria really tried to integrate, but I understood that he was in a football business logic and that the rest was secondary. It was all part of a seduction operation.”denounces another former employee of the club.
“Pablo Longoria is a handyman. Responsibilities change every six months, there is constant instability. His decisions can be very erratic, volatile.”
a former OM employeeat franceinfo: sport
The Marseille president’s lack of local roots was criticized in September, when supporters took advantage of the famous meeting to express alarm at the fate of the training center. The problem ? Fewer and fewer young locals are getting their chance, replaced by talents from all over the country.
Director of the training center from 2019 to 2022, Nasser Larguet left the club precisely because of this change of direction: “The club focused everything on post-training, and I did not agree with that, because it goes against the identity of a club. However, OM needs on the contrary to rediscover one’s identity, the one that gave it strength, its history, and which was lost…” The Moroccan regrets the turn taken by the club: “Post-training must be a complement to the training of local talents, not the heart of the project.”
It is in this context, and without seven players leaving for the CAN – including the precious Chancel Mbemba, Amine Harit or even Azzedine Ounahi – that OM faces a difficult end to the month of January: Monaco this Saturday, then the Olympique Lyonnais. Not to mention a passage through the perilous Europa League play-offs against Shakhtar Donetsk (February 15 and 21), which represent the last chance for OM to save their season.