Olympique de Marseille never stops digging. While we imagined that the Olympian club had hit rock bottom during its previous trip to Lorient, OM did even worse in Nantes, which was nevertheless preparing to be relegated. Totally resigned, Habib Beye’s men lost 3-0, triggering the anger of their coach.
And for Christophe Dugarry, the Marseille players have no excuse. “The OM players with the match they had on Saturday, you cannot give them any mitigating circumstances. You can’t, every time there’s something that doesn’t suit you, say that it’s too big, that they’re not bad, that they don’t run. The people of Nantes, they just ran more than OM, and that was enough to win, he underlined at the microphone of RMC. Statistics from last week: no one runs on this team, no one wants to. You see the difference when you turn on your TV: there are players in yellow running and players in white walking. There is no high-intensity race, races with intentions, in one-on-one you put your elbow in, you go there with energy. »
“If we watch the match against Nantes, we take two images: that of Greenwood who doesn’t want to, who looks from right to left, who made 3 meters; and the third goal conceded with Medina who comes to explain to us what football is, the grinta, and who raises his arms when Albine dribbles it, he continued. Balerdi and Medina who raise their arms, they let him pass, but how can he open his strawberry and teach a lesson? »
“Worse than could be imagined in the most terrible scenario…”
And for the former world champion, the disastrous end of the Ciel et Blanc season goes beyond the worst predictions. Long on the Ligue 1 podium, OM are on the verge of not winning the slightest European jump seat, unless Lens wins the Coupe de France against Nice, which would make seventh place qualifying for the Europa Conference League.
“There was this elimination in the Champions League, where you were unable to take 3 points in two games against Liverpool and Bruges, which means the football gods came for you. At that point, we asked ourselves the question of whether OM could finish 4th, and that was already a disaster scenario. And now it’s 7th…”, he recalled, adding: “This is a catastrophe, it’s even worse than we could have imagined in the most terrible scenario…”
