At the Velodrome stadium,
A debate between the right to happiness, and the cruelty of football. This is the philosophical question that animated the press conference room on Tuesday evening after the elimination of Olympique de Marseille in the 3rd preliminary round of the Champions League against Panathinaikos. The victory (2-1) will therefore not have been sufficient after the poor performance of the first leg (1-0), the fault of a completely crazy scenario concluded with a penalty session (3-5).
Everything had however started well for the Marseillais, with the opener of the score of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from the first minute of play, enough to heat up an already incandescent Vélodrome stadium a little more. The scenario even seemed ideal when the Gabonese doubled the lead just before the break (45+1), to give OM the advantage in the double confrontation. Beyond the score, Marcelino’s men were finally convincing in the game, much more than in the first leg. What to hope for.
An equalizer in the 90+9th minute
But we are starting to get to know OM. The Velodrome even better, and everyone pushed to see a third goal that would have given the 63,050 spectators a little breathing room. The breathing will finally have lasted only a few seconds after the goal of Ismaïla Sarr (53rd), finally refused for an offside position. And there, we said to ourselves that it was starting to smell bad.
A little more, again, when the Marseillais started to retreat from the 70th. And it was finally poor Mattéo Guendouzi who was caught by the patrol because of a totally involuntary hand in the area of Pau Lopez, reported by the VAR. The video assistance which however never intervened a few seconds earlier when the midfielder was thrown to the ground by the shoulder of a Greek on the other side of the field. An equalizer in the aggregate score over the two games in the very last seconds of the match, in the 90+9th minute!
“If we play the qualification ten times, we pass nine times”
“It’s football, it’s game facts, and I’m not even talking about penalties,” reacted Valentin Rongier afterwards. Perhaps he was talking about the rescue of a Greek defender on his line after a recovery from Vitinha in the first period of extra time (103rd)? Or the new intervention of the VAR to signal the offside of Ismaïla Sarr, who does not even touch the ball, on the goal of Vitinha (109th)?
So there remained this famous penalty shootout before which Marcelino decided to bring in Ruben Blanco in place of Pau Lopez. And as it was not enough for the Olympian people, Matteo Guendouzi, already guilty of the equaliser, missed his team’s first shot. Seconds later, Ruben Blanco didn’t have a strong enough hand to avoid deflecting the ball into his own net.
Another hard blow comes out, and a “huge disappointment” for Valentin Rongier and his teammates: “if we play the qualification ten times, we pass nine times so it’s also football. Tonight we largely dominated the match, we showed our superiority but it was not enough. »
“In football there is a question of justice, but also of cruelty”
Coach Marcelino, for whom “it’s very easy to analyze the match, but much more complicated to understand the result”, considered “the superiority” of his team as “obvious”. “But in the end we received a cruel goal when it was all over, a questionable penalty and fate played a bad trick on us. He didn’t want us to qualify”, he could only be sorry, while apologizing to the supporters. Bitter discovery of the relationship between his new club and happiness.
Pablo Longoria, who almost never reacts hot after a match, also began by apologizing to the supporters when he appeared in the mixed zone:
“It’s a disappointment that we share, and the frustration of the supporters. It’s a disappointment because it was a goal for the season. We can not blame the players but it’s hard. The arbitration was difficult on the way out, and still decisions that we do not accept today, on the action of Matteo Guendouzi. But we’re not going to go into that. In football there is a question of justice, but also of cruelty”.
Football is cruel and is played on details, nothing new. But in the end OM are again eliminated from the Champions League, again nothing new, without having played a single match in the group stage, this time. An elimination synonymous with transfer to the Europa League which “does not change anything in the project”, assures Pablo Longoria. But Valentin Rongier and his trainer Marcelino refused to mention this consolation prize.