Marseille is Paris 2.0

By: Magnusson | November 5th, 2007

OK. Now it’s official. We’re on our way to the worst season we’ve had in a long time. We drew Lorient this weekend and could have just as easily lost this match if it wasn’t for Steve Mandanda.
After this aturday’s disaster, Marseille was 18th before Lens - Saint Etienne. After that amazing game (seriously, Dindane scored with an injury), Marseille was at the 19th place and on our way to play against Porto, a team that hasn’t lost on their turf in two years.

On monday morning, Pape Diouf came back from his back surgery in much better physical form and decided to give his players an earful. After meeting with a few supporter leaders sunday afternoon, the President made it his mission to make sure every player was facing his own responsablities. He also told them how the fans were disppointed in their investment in the community life of the club.
Pape Diouf underlined their lack of class, saying how:

“None of the players has called Albert Emon since he left. They forgot him. And if Eric Gerets was to leave tomorrow, they would forget him as well. Now it is time for me to put the finger on the wound and the wound is obviously the players.”

Ouch…
Pape Diouf is not taking any prisonners but he was more than right when he pointed that

“Many of these players were hyper-motivated when they were to play against Marseille the precedent seasons and now that they’re playing with us, we don’t see any of that enthusiasm anymore3. I can’t tolerate this shameful 19th place”

This is a direct attack to some of out new recruits (Ziani and Cheyrou mainly who are the biggest disppointments when you see how they were playing last year) but also to some of our players from last year who you can’t even recognize (I’m looking straight at Lorik Cana).
Anyway, it needed to be said and Pape Diouf did it. Here is the video:

Now something else needs to be said. I’m not worried about tomorrow’s game because I think I understand the way some of our players’ state of mind lately. They’ve been playing like shit domestically but shining bright in Europe because all of them just want a bigger and better paycheck. None of them so far has given us the impresssion that they were here to stay for a long time (except Cissé and Givet, but they were both born in Arles, which is pretty much Marseille) nor to build anything. And that makes me sick.
We bought players and basically are going to have to buy a lt more this winter. We’re struggling to get anywhere at home whereas we’re going through in national cups and European competitions. What does that remind you of? Paris of last year…
Paris was 20th last April 1st before their game against Lens and it took them an elimination from the UEFA Cup to save their season in the last rounds. Marseillais fans can now be prepared to the same kind of seasons. I know I was very optimistic when some friends of mine told me how we would not easily recover from the Ribery departure as easily as I was thinking (I put it on the account that said friend hates Karim Ziani with a passion since he was playing for Troyes and they met each other at a night club…). BUt in my wildest nightmare, I couldn’t have imagined us dreading to play Metz and Lorient at home. This is just ridiculous, and after the displays we’ve had so far, I’m just wondering if we’re not going to get that 8-1 score from a few seasons back against a lot less mighty-looking Lyon team.