Successor to Laurent Blanc in the summer of 2012, Didier Deschamps might not have been free from any contract after the disappointing Euro 2012 for the Blues led by “The President”. The captain of the 98 world champions actually left OM a few weeks earlier while he had one year left on his contract (he would have pocketed compensation of 900,000 euros). “La Dèche”, who nevertheless brought back the title of champion of France to the Canebière 17 years after the last coronation of the club (and offered three victories in the League Cup in a row), was pushed to leave his post at the head of the Phocaeans.
Rachid Zeroual, the boss of the South Winners, one of the main groups of supporters of the Stade Vélodrome, explains having contributed to the departure of Deschamps in 2012. It was all the Marseille ultras who had reserved a strike in support of the team led by Mathieu Valbuena in the quarter-final first leg of the Champions League against Bayern (0-2 defeat). It must be said that 2010 French champion (beaten by Losc in 2011) finished in a pitiful 10th place in Ligue 1 during the 2011-2012 financial year. A fairly catastrophic result compared to the squad led by Deschamps and Guy Stéphan.
Deschamps visiting Sarkozy
“I don’t know what came over him, he wanted to blow up people within the club. He went to war against them and he involved us in this war, even though we had nothing to do with it. In the meantime, I tried to make up for it.”thus launched Zeroual in theAfter FootThursday on RMC, during a broadcast relocated to Marseille in the premises of La Provence. He specifies: “He went and said bullshit to Sarkozy (at the time President of the Republic, editor’s note) that I was the sponsor of the robberies and carjackings of players. What do you want me to tell him? That I love him? »
Zeroual thus put enormous pressure on Deschamps, but does not really feel guilty. “If I had offended Deschamps’ reason, why didn’t he file a complaint? »he asks. Before recalling that the defensive midfielder captain of OM, winner of the Champions League in 1993, remains a “icon” for the club, which has not won anything since the passage of the current coach of the Blues.
