After an exhausting season concluded by a second place synonymous with direct qualification for the Champions League, the time is up to the balance sheet for theOlympique de Marseille.
For the past few days, the club's strong heads have been increasing media outings to return to the vagaries of this 2024-25 exercise and project themselves to the next one. Like its president Pablo Longoria, Mehdi Benatia did not fled his responsibilities in this period.
Mehdi Benatia, a successful retraining.
The director of football did not dodge the subject of the transfer window during a press point made a few days ago. And among the many points discussed, a confidence caught the attention of OM followers: the club must absolutely keep Adrien Rabiot.
OM: Benatia sets its number 1 objective for the transfer window
Mehdi Benatia was very clear on the subject: “When I called Adrien Rabiot, there was no one who thought that Adrien Rabiot was going to come to Olympique de Marseille. Today, he will receive the prize for the best player of the season. Maybe without Adrien Rabiot, you don't go to the Champions League also because he was monstrous all season. And the truth is when I called him, the first sentence I told him, you can ask him, I said “Adrien, you may take me for a madman but I'm not crazy”. I have an idea, I have a plan. Can you listen to me? He said to me “no you laugh, I listen to you”, it started the discussion like that. And today, it is there and we are very happy that he is there, we hope that he will continue because before talking about recruits, one of my priorities anyway, is to keep Adrien Rabiot too because humanly, not only the player. You see the player, I especially talk about the man, of the guy inside the locker room, it's extraordinary, it's a top player, so we will do everything to try to keep it with us and we will bring players with the personality, players who can assume this stadium too and who enter the characteristic of the game we want to set up and that the coach asks».
Still, for its part, the vice-champion of the French world threw a cold by leaving doubt in an interview with Canal +. “” The Champions League in Marseille will be grand. Personally, I don't want to advance on what will happen next season. We are going to take a moment to land with President Longoria and Medhi Benatia ». An outing which has not gone unnoticed, and which can be akin to a negotiation lever for the rest of the adventure.
