Champions League – After OM-Tottenham: Igor Tudor would not have informed his players of Frankfurt’s victory

Unbreathable end to the match, for a cruel outcome. Olympique de Marseille supporters went through all the emotions on Tuesday evening. A victory for their team against Tottenham would have meant qualification for the knockout stages of the Champions League.

A draw would not have been a bad deal either, because due to Eintracht Frankfurt’s success at Sporting Portugal (1-2), such a result would have allowed Ciel et Blanc to finish third and be donated to the Europa League. But they exposed themselves too much, took too many risks and, on a final counter, Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg scored a killer goal (1-2).

On arrival, OM therefore found themselves last in their group, without the slightest consolation prize but with a mountain of regrets. So why didn’t the Olympians calm things down in the final minutes, in order to at least secure their place in C3? Just after the match, Igor Tudor in any case told Canal + that he had tried to pass on to his men the instruction that they should not jump into the collision.

“At the end of the game, I told my players to stay in the middle, not to be too numerous to go forward. But there was too much noise in the stadium, they couldn’t help me. To hear.” His players, precisely, all revealed that they were absolutely unaware of the scenario playing out in their group.

Tudor didn’t want to upset his players

And for good reason: according to RMC Sport, the Croatian technician had quite simply made the decision not to communicate this information to his protégés. He didn’t want to disrupt them, even as they continued to create huge chances, like Sead Kolasinac’s. It wasn’t until the very end of the meeting that Tudor wanted them to understand that they shouldn’t give themselves up so much. On the action preceding the second Spurs goal, we also saw him very advanced on the ground, probably to be heard better.