Olympique de Marseille is about to bring up Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, only a year after his departure. An express comeback that questions as much as it fascinates. The Marseille club is not at its first attempt: bringing former players to return is almost a tradition. These returns oscillate between expensive sports genius and cost of casting errors.
What is celebrated in the moment – the romanticism of a return to the fold – nevertheless deserves to be put to the test of the facts. Because behind each signature hides a strategy, expectations, and sometimes disillusions. Marseille history is full of these second chances, some transformed into gold, others with lasting regrets.
When the reunion give results
Some returns have returned to the Marseille coat of arms. Steve Mandanda, returned in 2017 after a failed rod at Crystal Palace, found his status as captain, played 172 additional games, and led OM in the Europa League final. Florian Thauvin also justified his acquisition after the Newcastle failure: 71 goals, a key role in the team and a real added value.
More ambivalent, the return of Payet, bought for € 30 million, was statistically solid but emotionally disappointing. He could not embody the leadership expected in key moments. These examples show that success rarely depends on the only raw talent, but rather on an alignment between individual motivation, collective project and institutional context.
OM and its ghosts: will Aubameyang are in the right line?
More discreet feedback… even forgotten
Not all comebacks are so bright. Rod Fanni, recalled in 2016 in a transition period, had only a second plan. Further in time, Franck Sauzée or Josip Skoblar illustrate other logics. The first, returned to a solid team in 1993, was a framework for the European coronation. The second, reinstated after a loan, has become a myth.
The key factor here? The stability of the club when returning. OM in crisis tends to grind its ghosts; OM conquering them for fertile land. Clearly, the glorious past does not protect from a failed return. The Marseille collective memory retains above all the successes, obscuring the failures which dot this return policy.
An economic logic not always paid
Beyond the sporting aspect, these returns often obey a financial logic. Recovering a player already trained at the club, knowing the environment and expectations, may seem less risky than a bet on the unknown. But this approach has its limits. Salaries have climbed, the requirements too, and the player who returns is no longer the same.
The example of Dimitri Payet illustrates this ambiguity. Technically flawless, he never found the aura of his first pass. Too many expectations or simply a football that had evolved? This economic dimension weighs heavily in the choices, sometimes to the detriment of the pure sports project.
Aubameyang, between opportunity and calculated risk
At 36, Aubameyang is about to complete a loop. Author of 19 goals in 2023-24, he did not deserve sportingly, but his departure had left traces, between internal tensions and questions of attitude. Bringing it back so quickly can be interpreted as a lack of board ideas … or as an assumed bet, against a background of reconciliation.
Everything will depend on the role that we attribute to it: leader of the locker room or an offensive joker? And above all, in which OM does he arrive? A stabilized club or left for a new deep mutation? The Marseille history of returns teaches us one thing: only the context determines whether this reunion will turn to the fairy tale or the bad remake.
