Despite the prospect of playing in the Champions League, Jorge Sampaoli slammed the door on the side of Olympique de Marseille. A resounding start far from surprising as the Argentine manager was no longer on the same wavelength as its president, Pablo Longoria.
Sampaoli was too greedy for Longoria.
Jorge Sampaoli decided to say stop. A little over a year after his arrival to replace Andr Villas-Boas, the Argentinian coach has turned his back on the Marseille club despite a fine 2nd place and the prospect of playing in the Champions League. Why such a radical choice?
Sampaoli too ambitious on the transfer window
According to L’Equipe, the one we nicknamed El Pelado had several points of disagreement with Pablo Longoria. Especially on the issue of the transfer window. Sampaoli wanted to have a workforce ready for employment by mid-July in order to work on automation. A difficult request to satisfy for its president, who, aware of the economic situation of the club, prefers to temporize to achieve good moves, even if it means waiting for the end of the transfer market. Two opposing visions that have created dissension.
While the southern club has already recovered Samuel Gigot and Isaak Tour, Sampaoli expected more. Much more. The South American technician remembered OM’s last two disastrous campaigns in C1. It was out of the question for him to make up the numbers and therefore asked his leader for recruits of choice. Among his recommendations, Antoine Griezmann, in the dark in Spain, and Renato Sanches, announced close to Paris. Two impossible files to complete for the vice-champion of France.
The Milik and Mandanda cases weighed
However, the abyss began to widen much earlier in the season. Sampaoli did not really appreciate the multiple outings of his former superior, during the spring, to discuss the desired extension of his contract. The former coach of the Argentine national team took these statements as a stroke of pressure from Longoria, who wanted to corner him a few weeks before a transfer window where he knew full well that the positions were going to be difficult to reconcile.
Also, the cases of certain players in the squad have crystallized the tensions. Longoria, a big fan of Arkadiusz Milik, did not understand the management of the Polish striker, sometimes holder, sometimes replacing, by Sampaoli. Nor that of Steve Mandanda, for whom the young leader also had to do the buffer so as not to make matters worse. A rather heavy climate which pushed the boss of OM to make arrangements by approaching Igor Tudor, for more than two weeks now, to take over.
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