“Forever the first” With thirteen defeats in a row, Olympique de Marseille, beaten on Wednesday November 25 by Porto (2-0), erases Anderlecht from sad records and is already erased from the Champions League, where he has never shown himself at the level .
Porto are off to a good start to join Manchester City in the round of 16. The Portuguese champion won thanks to the untenable Zaidu Sanusi (39e) and a penalty from Sérgio Oliveira (72e sp), for a culpable oversight of Leonardo Balerdi.
OM have only one goal, third place to be transferred to the Europa League. He will have to beat Olympiakos in the next match by reversing the first leg (1-0) to reach Piraeus at 3 points and play everything on the last day.
A mini-revolution in the field
The mini-revolution operated by André Villas-Boas did not reverse the course of “Nightmare”, as the Olympian coach calls this Champions League season for his team. The Portuguese put Dimitri Payet and Dario Benedetto on the bench, replaced by young Luis Henrique (18 years old, first start) and Valère Germain.
“AVB” also chose Argentina’s Leonardo Balerdi in central defense alongside Alvaro Gonzalez rather than Duje Caleta-Car, who has been in weak form lately.
But the Argentine has paid tribute to Diego Maradona, who died on Wednesday. He killed all hope by stupidly forgetting Moussa Marega on a key. Late, Balerdi jostled the Malian in the box, conceded a penalty, and cashed a second yellow. He had already been warned for having irregularly retained the same Marega (28e).
Zaidu saves Porto
The start of the match, however, augured for better for OM, more dashing, trying offensive combinations, and putting a lot of commitment. Commitment in the spirit, even if the Portuguese bench moaned a lot about the contacts, which was heard a lot in the empty stadium.
But despite this correct first period, the dominant OM cracked on a corner where Zaidu Sanusi was able to do it twice, after a magnificent first parade by Steve Mandanda. The very offensive Nigerian side took advantage of an unfortunate rebound on Boubacar Kamara, but also the passivity of the defense.
Porto were successful scoring on their second opportunity, the first already coming from Zaidu (37e).
But the score was not illogical at the break. The Marseille domination brought only one big opportunity, Agustin Marchesin had to relax to take out a header from Valère Germain on a free kick from Florian Thauvin (15e).
At the hour of play, Villas-Boas changed his plans, put Payet and Benedetto for Luis Henrique and Germain, Michael Cuisance in place of Kamara. But the recovery only lasted ten minutes, before Balerdi weighed down his team. During the short improvement, a good cross from Payet found Thauvin, but Zaidu, decidedly everywhere, saved his team.
The Champions League, more disputed for seven seasons, was decidedly too big for OM. Villas-Boas, who wondered aloud the day before the match if it was not better to end very quickly with this “Nightmare” and focus on Ligue 1 to come back next year, will be able to prepare Nantes on Saturday. If OM remain on thirteen defeats in the Champions League, they have just chained three wins in the league.
