After the “Reds”, Marseille takes on “Les verts”…

By: Magnusson | October 5th, 2007

Ii has been a pretty busy week for the Marseillais. We actually woke up and managed to surprise a Liverpool team that highly overlooked us, taking the first place of our Champions League group with two wins.
Then Raymond Domenech decided that none of our players would actually be in the french National Team that will play against the Feroe Island (Oct 13th) and Lithuania (Oct 17th). I don’t think anybody will actually be able to complain given the level of the performances our players have been given. The positive is that Eric Gerets will be able to work with the whole team during those few international break days.
Earlier today I got an email linking me to a page of the Lyon Website where Jean-Michel Aulas was saying how happy he was that Marseille won against Liverpool. I don’t know who was talkng there, the President of the G14 (that Marseille fought hard to get Lyon in), Lyon’s president or the guy who said Pape Diouf was a liar. Either way, the hatchet seems buried and JMA has figured out that he needs a strong Marseille and a strong Paris, Monaco, Lens and Bordeaux (no disrespect to other teams but i’m thinking markets here) to be able to get the Ligue 1 exciting again. If that was the case Canal+ would not be bitching about the prices of the Ligue 1 renewal. Good to see Aulas playing the solidarity card for once.
Our president on the other hand seems to not have forgotten the banner that was basically asking the staff to “get the F*ck Out”. He was asking friday morning, visibly upset why some fans would be so quick to forget and was even questionning who they were rolling for.
Then Eric gerets asked Pape Diouf to consider enrolling ex-lille right-back Benoît Angbwa at the next mercato. Apparently he will be a free agent this winter since he refused to renew his contract with the russian club of Samara where he was playing. If I tremember correctly, he was adequate, nothing more nd looked way more than the 23 years they were crediting him to be.
It was also quite shocking to see that Bolo Zenden was not in the group. Well, he woke up thursday morning with an excrutiating pain from his foot and a hematoma. He ll be replaced in the group by the very young Serbian phenom Milos Krstic, who impressed during the preseason friendlies and who earned a spot after Gerets saw tapes.Nasri, Cheyrou, Faty are sure not to be playing when Mandanda and Cissé could be added to the list.

And now we have to get back to the Ligue 1 where we haven’t been able to transcend ourseles and already lost the title by only taking nine points in as many games. In our first confrontation with Saint Etienne since last season’s last game of the season where Matthieu Valbuena and Djibril Cissé managed to qualify us for the Champons League. We’ll go back there and we will need to take as many points as possible.

I would love to talk about the rivalry that exists between the two french clubs that harbor the most fans ‘marseille has been edging out Saint-Etienne in the last few years) but i’m pretty lazy and wih the trip I’m about to make, it just seems too much. I apologize for the lack of backgrounfd research for such an important match in our seasons. It will be refereed by the youngest ref in the Ligue 1, Thierry Auriac. Let’s hope the math college professor reveals himself to be our lucky charm sincehe was officiating when Marseille beat Caen.
So here’s our list for tomorrow.

Keepers: Mandanda, Hamel
Defenders: Taiwo, Bonnart, Givet, Rodriguez, Zubar
Midfielders: Cana, MBami, Gragnic, Oruma, Valbuena, Ziani, Krstic
Strikers: Arrache, Cissé, Niang, Moussilou