The day after the resignation of its coach and the withdrawal of its management, OM faces Ajax Amsterdam on Thursday for its first Europa League match.
After the stupor, it’s time for the field. Olympique de Marseille, which is having a very eventful start to the week, with the withdrawal of its president and the departure of the coach who had just taken the reins, has a meeting with Ajax Amsterdam , Thursday September 21, to launch its Europa League campaign. An already crucial meeting in the Olympian season, which takes place in a particularly difficult context.
“It’s sure it’s quite a storm“, conceded Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the OM striker, present at the traditional press conference before the match on Wednesday. It was the 34-year-old experienced striker who fell to the heavy task of to appear in front of journalists, to give a first word in the middle of this institutional crisis. Assailed with questions about the future of the club’s management, the Gabonese kicked in, without saying too much, to focus on the importance of the upcoming match.
The OM players will approach this meeting without the guiding ideas that Marcelino has been trying to impose on the Olympian team for three months. After only seven games at the helm of Marseille, the Spanish coach officially resigned on Wednesday afternoon. It is without him that the players and the rest of the staff will take the plane to Amsterdam. The day before, the four leaders of OM, including president Pablo Longoria, had announced that they were withdrawing, giving themselves time to make a decision.
An unexpected crisis
These decisions stem from a stormy meeting which took place on Monday at the Robert Louis-Dreyfus training center, between the club’s management and representatives of supporters’ associations. These latter “expressed their wish to see the current OM board resign“, the club said in a press release published Tuesday evening. “The threat of war was issued, as long as they (the members of the board) did not resign“, it is written in this same text.
The situation appears ludicrous because OM is not in crisis on a sporting level. He is preparing to play in the Europa League, a prestigious European competition, even if he was eliminated by Panathinaikos in the qualifying phase of the Champions League. In Ligue 1, OM are undefeated and occupy 3rd place after five days.
“It’s a bit special, because it’s true that if we look at the ranking, there is no drama“, Aubameyang was surprised. “I didn’t see anything coming.”, assured Jacques Abardonado, known as “Pancho”, at a press conference. Member of Marcelino’s staff, the latter was appointed interim coach after the departure of the Spanish technician. For how long ? “I can’t answer you. I take it game by game.”
“Focus on the field”
Not much. This is what we must remember from the responses of Aubameyang and Abardonado during this press conference, which did not clarify the future, even the near future, of OM. Marcelino’s name was not mentioned once by the interim and his attacker. The latter refused, when a journalist suggested it, to say a few words to his leaders: “What we say to each other, players and managers, must remain between us.”
“We want to be focused on the field. We are left with two results that stick in our throats“, however launched Aubameyang, in reference to the two draws against Nantes (1-1) and Toulouse (0-0). While waiting to learn more about the future of the institutional crisis that OM is experiencing – its The outcome will determine the name of the future coach – the players and Abardonado take refuge in the traditional wooden language.
Fortunately for OM, Ajax, not in great shape either, is also having a crisis. “To stay in a good dynamic, the first match must be good“, launched Abardonado, aware that after this meeting in the Netherlands there will be a perilous trip to the pitch of Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday. A complicated sequence which will push OM a little further, or allow them to get out the head of the water.