Our own private little Derby…

By: Magnusson | August 29th, 2007

The PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur) region is in the south East of France. It’s not only the location of the french Rivieira but also the home of many popular football clubs. Toulon, Monaco, Montpellier, Endoume, Aix, Cannes, Istres, Arles, Avignon, Nice and Marseille. So many clubs, so many local rivalries. But of course Marseille has always been the biggest club of the region. The rivalries have just varied with who was the “other” top club in the land. Monaco never really counted because they don’t have sports fans per se so that Derby never goes further than the limits of a stadium. Nice however have been known to harvest some of the most violent football fans in France and when they come to Marseille, you can be sure to see some altercations.

This year will definitly not be different even though the PC security of Marseille has been able to control the Nice fans and more importantly the Marseillais fans who just want to settle some differences every year. Nice is the most important of all our rivals and this derby is the more ancioent one since we’ve played them 88 times at home in the championnat and won 46 times and drew them 21 times. We lost to them 24 times on their own turf though. Marseille has not lost to Nice in the Vélodrome since the 1977-1978 season. Last year, the Antonetti boys managed to get a penalty at the last minute and beat us 2-1.Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen agian. We need all our faculties and all the confidence we can getbefore focusing on Paris
Here is the group for tonight’s game:
Keepers : Mandanda, Hamel
Defenders : Taiwo, Bonnart, Givet, Rodriguez, Faty, Zubar
Midfielders : Cana, Cheyrou, Ziani, Nasri, M’Bami, Zenden, Valbuena
Forwards : Ayew, Niang, Moussilou

Djibril Cissé, as it was dreaded, will not be able to play tonight and won’t even be fit for the Classico on sunday. Let’s hope he comes back to us very quickly and starts scoring again.
Another news that’s quite concerning is Habib Beye’s new exclusion of the group. Let’s just wait and see. We know he’s been tired and Albert Emon noticed it as well. Let’s just not make him the sole responsible of Marseille bad seaosn start. that would be infinitly unfair to someone who refused many offers and salary bumps this summer and who never stopped showing his loyalty to the club and to the fans. He’s our captain and he should be treated with more consideration.