Nothing is going to Olympique de Marseille anymore. After a disturbing defeat in Reims (1-3), internal tensions have crossed a new course. The Phocaean club, already in sport loss, lives a real crisis of governance behind the scenes. And it is Roberto de Zerbi, the Italian coach, who is now crystallizing the tensions. This beginning of the week was marked by an icy episode, almost unreal, between the technician and his locker room … and it is only by digging that we discover the element that really set fire to the powder.
While several Muslim players in OM hoped to be able to celebrate Eid-el-Fitr with their families, they were refused this possibility. Worse still, according to information disclosed by the team, from Zerbi would have retorted them coldly : “I never see my family. So you're not going to see yours either. ” A sentence perceived as humiliating and insensitive, all the more badly lived as it is added to a series of authoritarian decisions.
“You are not going to see your families”: the exit from Zerbi who scandalizes
Monday, tension culminated. As a punishment after Reims, from Zerbi refused to animate the session. In response, the players collectively decided not to train, before the intervention of a Medhi Benatia forced to play the firefighters. The director of football had to remind the players their responsibilities, in a scene worthy of a quasi-amateurry, extremely rare at this level.
Total tension at OM: de Zerbi prohibits Eid, the Load in Fire
Zerbi's management, based on emotional intensity, is starting to leave traces. Enter public infertiles (Pol Lirola, Mason Greenwood, Balerdi), humiliating replicas (“Do you defend like that when I was the only one to believe in you?”) And training stopped prematurely, the methods of the Italian coach no longer pass. He would even almost come to blows with Ismaël Koné this fall. A toxic atmosphere sets in.
Faced with this series of slippages, the fracture between Zerbi and his group now seems difficult to fill. And if the club still wants to believe in Europe, it will first have to extinguish the fire internally. The locker room seems to have united … but against his own coach. A shame, at this stage of the season.
