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Posts Tagged ‘Marseille’

“PARIS — Marseille dug deep to come from behind and win 2-1 at Rennes on Sunday, extending their winning run to seven games in all competitions and returning to within two points of the Champions League positions in Ligue 1.”

My AFP round-up of the weekend’s Ligue 1 matches, featuring a brace for Lille debutant Nolan Roux and a last-minute winner by Montpellier’s Olivier Giroud, can be found here.

“Rémy’s burgeoning partnership with Valbuena has been a key factor in the revival. Of the former Lyon striker’s nine league goals, five had been created by Valbuena, who tops the Ligue 1 assists chart with 10 decisive passes. The pair are motivated by a shared desire to secure places in France’s Euro 2012 squad and their understanding is underscored by an off-pitch friendship. “Sometimes, it feels like we’re the only ones playing and that everything will come off,” says Rémy.”

I’ve written a piece for ESPN Soccernet on how Didier Deschamps has transformed Marseille from a side that won just once in their opening 10 league games into one competing for silverware on four fronts. You can read it here.

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“PARIS — Extra-time goals from Morgan Amalfitano and Loïc Rémy brought Marseille a hard-earned 3-1 victory over Le Havre on Sunday, sending them into the Coupe de France last 16 and extending their winning run to six straight games.”

My round-up of the weekend’s Coupe de France action for AFP, including narrow wins over lower-league opposition for Marseille, Lille and Bordeaux, can be read here.

“PARIS — Lille’s French title defence received a significant setback on Sunday as their 17-game unbeaten run came to an end in a 2-0 defeat at resurgent Marseille in which Loïc Rémy claimed both goals.”

Read my AFP match report on Marseille’s victory over Lille, as well as a round-up of all the weekend’s Ligue 1 action, here.

A version of this piece, a review of the year 2011 in French football, was written for Agence France-Presse and published on the AFP newswire on Wednesday, December 21.

Javier Pastore is presented to the media by Paris Saint-Germain sporting director Leonardo on August 8, 2011 after his €42 million transfer from Palermo

Lille ended a 56-year silverware drought with a stunning league and Coupe de France double in 2011, but by the end of the year, the club monopolising the headlines in France was Paris Saint-Germain.

The perennial sleeping giants of the French game were shaken from their slumber in the summer, when the Qatar Investment Authority completed a takeover that transformed PSG into one of the world’s richest sides. With charismatic former player Leonardo installed as sporting director, the club embarked on an ambitious recruitment drive that saw nine new players arrive at Parc des Princes at a cost of around €90 million.

Tried and tested Ligue 1 performers such as Kévin Gameiro (Lorient) and Blaise Matuidi (Saint-Etienne) formed the basis of that recruitment, but the signing that turned heads across the football world was that of Javier Pastore. The willowy Argentine playmaker had been expected to leave Palermo for a Champions League club, but PSG secured his signature with a €42 million bid that made the 22-year-old the most expensive player in French football history.

The QIA era began with the damp squib of a 1-0 loss at home to Lorient on the season’s opening day but PSG quickly turned things around and finished the year three points clear of Montpellier at the league summit. However, the new owners’ thirst for stardust saw coach Antoine Kombouaré coldly sacrificed and replaced by Carlo Ancelotti, while Pastore’s transfer could yet be trumped by the mooted arrival of David Beckham.

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“The 2010 French champions endured a similarly challenging opening to the 2007-08 campaign, winning only once in their first 10 games, before recovering to finish third. A run of one defeat in 17 matches between early November and mid-March provided the foundation for a late-season tilt at the podium, but third place was only secured thanks to a 78th-minute Djibril Cissé strike in a 4-3 victory at home to Strasbourg on the season’s final day. With only the top three sides in Ligue 1 qualifying for the Champions League again this season, Marseille need to pull off a similar feat to retain their place among Europe’s elite.”

My latest Pitchside Europe blog for Eurosport, on Marseille’s bid to overturn yet another sloppy start to the Ligue 1 season, can be found here.

In the popular imagination, tactical innovations are often the product of deep rumination by battle-worn coaches desperate to reverse the fortunes of an ailing team. We are invited to imagine them pacing around their training ground offices late at night, a half-drained bottle of brandy within easy reach, or perhaps wide-eyed and manic, furiously rearranging salt and pepper mills to the bewilderment of their companions at a swanky dinner. Suddenly, the eureka moment arrives. The centre-forward needs to be withdrawn to a deeper role! The sweeper should play behind the defence! Wing-backs!

The reality, of course, is usually rather more prosaic – tactical shifts evolve by training ground experimentation, or are imposed upon a coach by injuries, suspensions or losses of form – but sometimes, a new strategy will present itself quite by accident.

With one sweep of Aaron Ramsey’s right boot, Marseille’s season lurched from desperate to tragi-comic on Wednesday night. Almost literally incapable of winning in Ligue 1 (where they have registered one victory in their opening 10 games), OM had found respite in the Champions League and were seconds from taking a valuable point from a dismal game with Arsenal when Johan Djourou’s cross drew in Marseille’s defenders like moths to a flame and left the Welsh midfielder with time and space to beat Steve Mandanda with an unflappable finish at the back post.

Defeat was cruel on Marseille, who had limited the visitors to just two clear second-half chances up to that point, although Borussia Dortmund’s unscheduled 3-1 defeat at Olympiakos means their chances of reaching the knockout phase remain in good shape. It would be unfortunate indeed for Didier Deschamps’ slide to slip from the competition at the group stage, for it is in the Champions League that their tactical escape route has been illuminated.

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“MARSEILLE — An injury-time goal by substitute Aaron Ramsey gave Arsenal a 1-0 win at Marseille on Wednesday that enabled Arsene Wenger’s side to leapfrog their opponents to top spot in Champions League Group F.”

My AFP match report can be read here.

“PARIS — Eleven points separate Lyon and Marseille after OL defeated their title rivals 2-0 on Sunday to go top of Ligue 1 and consign Didier Deschamps’ hapless side to the bottom of the table.”

You can read my round-up of the weekend’s Ligue 1 action for AFP here.

A version of this piece was written for Agence France-Presse and published on the AFP newswire on Tuesday, April 19.

For their rivals in the French title race, the manner in which Marseille have muscled their way into position in recent weeks bears an ominous trace of déjà vu.

Just as they did last season, when they ended an 18-year wait for the Ligue 1 championship, Marseille are steadily grinding out results while their opponents flounder. The 2-1 comeback victory at Montpellier on Sunday enabled Didier Deschamps’s side to close to within a point of wobbling leaders Lille, held to a 1-1 draw by Bordeaux the day before. Third-place Lyon, meanwhile, saw their title ambitions hit in a 1-0 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain that left them six points off the pace with seven games remaining.

Marseille’s victory at Montpellier bore all the hallmarks of the club’s success under Deschamps. The visitors fell behind in the 64th minute but reacted immediately, André-Pierre Gignac snapping out of his first-half slumber to apply a deft lobbed finish to Benoît Cheyrou’s exquisite raking pass. The winning goal arrived eight minutes from time, Taye Taiwo dispatching an assured penalty after Abdelhamid El Kaoutari had been penalised for holding back Loïc Rémy. “I won’t say that we were in control of proceedings, but the most important thing was to take the points,” said Deschamps with trademark pragmatism.

Coincidentally, it was at Montpellier’s Stade de la Mosson that last season’s title charge also began. A 2-0 defeat on January 30 left Marseille 12 points behind defending champions Bordeaux in sixth place, but the players’ reaction was a 15-game unbeaten run – including seven straight wins in March and April – that carried them to the brink of the title.

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