the European Cup, OM’s mad hope to save its failed season

Olympique de Marseille travels to Benfica Lisbon this Thursday in the quarter-final first leg of the Europa League.

Getting around the bustling Estadio de la Luz (65,000 seats) of Benfica Lisbon is never easy, even less so in the quarter-final of the Europa League. However, this is the menu for Olympique de Marseille, this Thursday, April 11, 2024. Faced with the Portuguese led by the bête noire of OM, Angel Di Maria, the Marseillais are at stake for their immediate European future, but not only that.

Left behind in the championship, the Marseillais can only count on a final victory in this Europa League to achieve their objective: to qualify for the next Champions League. Perilous and (very) uncertain, this mission therefore passes through Lisbon. A trip that OM is approaching in a precarious sporting climate, after four consecutive defeats (Villarreal, Rennes, PSG and Lille), which put the Marseillais ten points from the qualifying places for the Champions League, six from the Europa League and five of the Europa Conference League.

39% chance of qualification, 3% final victory…

Declared candidate for the Champions League at the start of the season, OM is therefore heading towards a complete disaster in Ligue 1. On the national scene, the last Olympian hope of winning a ticket to the European Cup may rest. on the Parisian rival. Indeed, in the event of PSG’s victory in the Coupe de France against Lyon, 7th place in the championship (occupied by Reims, one point ahead of OM) would qualify for the Europa Conference League. Which would not really console the Marseille club, which at least wants to compete in the Europa League.

Barring an improbable rise in the standings over the last six days of the championship, OM’s European future therefore lies in this season’s Europa League. Concretely: to avoid a 2024-2025 season without European competition – a first in five years – OM must win the Europa League. Which, given the current sporting weakness of Jean-Louis Gasset’s men, would be a feat. “We were bad, we must not hide, and stop making excuses”admitted Jordan Veretout on Friday, after the debacle against Lille, at the microphone of Prime Video.

“The season is not over, we will quickly have to get our heads back on track, work, […] return to the coal and from Thursday because we have a quarter-final of the Europa League. If we play like that, we’ll get kicked out. “

Jordan Veretout

at Prime Video

However, even an Olympique de Marseille at 100% of his abilities would not be favorite in this final Europa League table, where he rubs shoulders with Liverpool, AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, AS Roma or even West Ham. Beautiful people that Marseille will only meet if the Marseille club eliminates Benfica Lisbon, solid second in the Portuguese championship, quarter-finalist of the last Champions League, and led by the Argentinian world champions Otamendi and Di Maria, in particular.

The only good news for OM is that the return match will take place at the Vélodrome next Thursday. In these conditions, and while the potential opponent in the semi-final will be the winner of Liverpool-Atalanta, the probability of seeing Marseille win the C3 (of which OM played three finals in 1999, 2004 and 2018) is tiny. According to Opta, it is even 3%, the worst of the eight clubs involved.

Nothing to intimidate the Phocaeans, however, like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: “We had a warrior’s journey. Few people thought we would get out of the group, already. We did it because we had some crazy matches. But that’s what makes the cup so charming of Europe, and in particular even more here in Marseille”warned the Gabonese in an interview with UEFA.

From the height of his 33 goals in C3, the top scorer in the history of the competition even assured that he would exchange this record for a single winning goal in the final of the competition: “Because it’s something that would go down in history. Even more here. It could be extraordinary…” Extraordinary, but above all for the moment very hypothetical. To give themselves the right to dream, OM must already negotiate their quarter-final first leg, before hoping for a combination of circumstances crazy enough to take them to Dublin, the scene of the final of the competition.