On the poster of the 29e Day, the confrontation between Marseille and Montpellier, scheduled this Saturday evening at the Vélodrome, always has a special flavor for Rolland Courbis. And not only because it was on the bench of the two clubs. This match inevitably refers to August 22, 1998 and to the fantastic rise of the Marseillais in front of their neighbors.
While they were led 4-0 at halftime-and even until the time of play-the sky and white were finally going to win 5-4 and know one of the wildest evenings in their history. So OM coach Rolland Courbis remembers the “indescribable” atmosphere of the Vélodrome in the second half. “Part of the spectators left at halftime. Time to reach the car, they heard the noise of 4-1, then that of 4-2, they quickly returned ”, He had told France Football, adding:
“The public had set fire. It had taken us at the guts. ”
And the memory is shared by Robert Pirès. “When you are told that the public has a role to play, I can tell you that it was powerful. It is something that we cannot explain. You are on the ground and you feel that there is something that comes from the stands and that raises you. You feel like you are flying, something phew ”, had he told 90 minutes.
Rolland Courbis taped his players
The former Messin, who became world champion a month earlier, also remembered the chat delivered by Rolland Courbis at halftime. The technician had used the metaphor of pétanque to motivate his troops. “There are teams that lose 12-0 and which earn 13-12 at the end. It really exists, provided that the losing team does not throw the balls and do not leave to drink pastis before the time. She believes in it until the end. We win this second period, and then we will say that the first was an accident. We will have the opportunity to be able to use it so as not to reproduce it … “, had he launched his troops. Enough to mark the spirits of his players.
“Rolland Courbis did not get upset at all. He arrives quiet, posed, he waits for the pressure to fall back and at one point, he begins to speak to us. He compares what we are living in a pétanque match. And in fact he leaves us like that. We look at each other and we say to ourselves 'he is crazy'. We lose 4-0 and he tells us about a pétanque match. In addition it is Marseillle! At halftime, it was hot ”, Robert Pirès had remembered, taped by the calm of his coach.
“At the half-time of OM-Montpellier, led 0-4 at home, we returned to the locker room asking ourselves how we were going to be able to get out of the stadium. And then there, Rolland Courbis tells us that we are going to win the match. Just score the first goal. We are all looking at and we wonder if he has not smoked the carpet, had also told Eric Roy, another protagonist of this unforgettable match. No one believes it and not even, I think. But his words remain in our minds. Montpellier is on the verge of putting a fifth by Fugier, but when we score our first goal, we believe in it and by putting the second, seeing the Hérault players collapsed, there is no longer any question of believing it, we are sure that we are going to get there. And we win 5-4. It remained for me a management lesson. »»
Rolland Courbis also did not fail to pay the return of the locker room while Louis Nicollin tried to comfort him. Bravache, he then throws them, sure of his fact
“When I think we are going to win 5-4 …”. “This is balls!” “, Then replied the president of MHSC, who will launch at the end of the match to his Marseille counterpart, Robert Louis-Dreyfus: “Hey, president, she had to be good for!” »»
