Olympique de Marseille has its new coach. An agreement was reached overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday between Pablo Longoria, OM president, and Spanish coach Marcelino Garcia Toral (57). There are only a few details left to settle, before the signing of the contract scheduled for the week. Here are five things to know about ‘Longoria’s best friend,’ as an agent puts it 20 minutes, who will have his first experience outside Spain.
A professional and then friendly relationship with Pablo Longoria
With Marcelino as coach, Olympique de Marseille will be led next season by three Spaniards, in addition to Pablo Longoria, the president, and Javier Ribalta, the director of football. His name also comes up with each change of coach since Longoria’s arrival in Marseille, as the two men appreciate each other. They met in 2006, at Recreativo Huelva, which Marcelino had just promoted to the Spanish first division. Pablo Longoria was just beginning his career in recruitment. Then they found themselves on the side of Valencia, in 2018, when Marcelino was the coach and Longoria the sporting director.
“Marcelino is very important to me because he taught me to analyze football and to understand a lot of things. Without him, I would not have had the same career,” Pablo Longoria confided to Canal+ shortly after his appointment as president of OM. After nearly 20 years, Longoria and Marcelino have even become friends. “I can’t be objective because he’s a friend. He can do anything and he will always be very good, whatever the mission entrusted to him, thanks to his investment, his intelligence and his competence. He has very clear ideas. When he believes in a project entrusted to him, he carries it out,” Longoria said to Marca, when Marcelino was a lead to take over from Luis Enrique at the head of La Roja. But this friendship could be double-edged in the event of poor results from the Spaniard on the OM bench.
Convincing results, except in Seville
Since making his debut in the top flight in 2006, Marcelino has averaged 1.51 points in 377 La Liga games. A more than honest raw balance sheet, when we know that the 57-year-old technician has never coached tenors like Barça, Real or Atlético de Madrid. Among his most impressive performances, we note the 8th place of Recreativo Huelva with him in 2007, then the 6th of Racing Santander the following season. Two clubs respectively in the 4th and 2nd Spanish division today. His only real failure dates back to 2011-2012 at Sevilla FC, his most exclusive club, where he was sacked after 21 games, when the Andalusian club struggled in 13th position.
Marcelino was then a sacred builder at Villarreal, which he brought back to La Liga in 2013, before installing the Yellow Submarine in the Top 6 for three years in a row (from 2014 to 2016). Then a new cycle at Valencia CF (from 2017 to 2019) was crowned with success, with the 2019 King’s Cup and two consecutive Champions League qualifications. Less spectacular, his record at Athletic Club de Bilbao, his last experience on a bench from January 2021 to May 2022, is still accompanied by a Spanish Super Cup won (3-2) against Barça in 2021 , two Copa del Rey finals, and two seasons finished in the Top 10.
A sharp tactician, video lover
Marcelino has a reputation as a very meticulous tactician, and much appreciated by his players. Sacked after only three days of the championship, in September 2019, by the owner of Valencia CF Peter Lim, the Spanish coach had notably received very strong support from his defender Ezequiel Garay on Instagram: “Whoever made this decision hurt to a whole team and supporters. I say it loud and clear: THIS IS NOT FAIR”. Also present throughout the Marcelino era in Valencia (from 2017 to 2019), the Spanish midfielder Dani Parejo praises his former coach: “From day one, I said to myself: “This guy knows football “. Each of his exercises made us reflect. Revealed under the orders of Marcelino at Villarreal in 2015-2016, Cédric Bakambu went even further, during a freewheeling Zack YouTube show with Zack Nani:
He’s my mentor and the best coach I’ve had in my entire career. In training, it was going super fast. We did a lot of video, every day, including our own workouts. It made me progress, something sick. He set up preferential circuits. We were so settled that once, we scored a goal by repeating exactly what we had achieved the day before in training. This guy leaves nothing to chance, he’s a wizard! »
A follower of 4-4-2
Gone is the end of the three-man defense in Igor Tudor’s unremovable 3-4-2-1, and place in Marcelino’s 4-4-2, almost as unremovable as the Croatian’s scheme. The Spaniard has almost always made his teams evolve in this pattern, except at Athletic Club de Bilbao, when he had to do with the workforce in place and little room for maneuver in recruitment. Based on defensive solidity with two compact lines, to better explode towards the opposing goal through quick attacks, facilitated by fast and technical players on the sides. All with two top strikers with different profiles. A philosophy that corresponds rather to the modern football advocated by Pablo Longoria, with a lot of intensity and races. And this even if the continuity of the project initiated by Igor Tudor, which Pablo Longoria wishes to pursue, is not obvious with Marcelino.
He does not hesitate to launch young
We know the difficulties OM have in bringing young people from their training center into the first team. Marcelino does not hesitate for his part to launch young people. The Furia Liga site thus underlined that Marcelino “had been in Valencia the coach of the Lim era who gave the most minutes to the young people of the cantera, far from the image that we wanted to stick to him when he was released. ‘gap “. But it is the main interested party who speaks best of his philosophy towards young players.
He appreciates “the small numbers” to allow “the incorporation of young players” and he likes to stimulate them with “enthusiasm” more than by obligation, as he explained to World Eleven. “I have always liked working with young players, perhaps because I am grateful to have been a cantera player who crossed the categories, until becoming a professional player in the team of my land [au Sporting Gijon]. I don’t forget it, ”he explained. Good news at a time when Pablo Longoria wants to breathe a whole new philosophy into the training center, with why not the future enhancement of certain young elements.