When we get back to the Arena next week, all they’ll have to do is win 1-0 at home and we could be eliminated. I don’t want to sound overly pessimistic but I seemed to me that as soon as we scored the second goal, all of our player’s minds shifted to our weekend confrontation against Paris Saint-Germain. We conceded the away goal that is keeping hope alive on the dutch side.

First let’s focus on the positive. Our main reason to be happy is that we can win at the Vélodrome again. This statement might seem strange but we’ve been unable to do so in the past few weeks. Don’t forget that if we didn’t draw Le Mans and Valenciennes [and thus losing four points], we would be ahead of Lyon as we speak.

Second good news is that Mamadou Niang has finally scored again. Our Senegalese superstar who has been mute ever since coming back from his foot-injury (he broke his foot in December) showed a lot of promise and scored an otherworldly type of goal, A Rabah Madjer-esque goal.

The other great surprise is that Renato Civelli, who is living some kind of a rebirth as we speak, held another one of those very solid defensive games. Marseille is the best defense in France right now, having conceded 0 goals in five games and Civelli is no stranger to this. The Argentian who has been fighting for a spot on the team for over a year seems to have immensely improved inn a year. We could have used him at some points earlier in the season.

Now with he bad news. First we lost Laurent Bonnart to a groin injury. the diminutive right-back will be out for at least two months and may be replaced by either Ronald Zubar or Tyrone Mears.

The news doesn’t seem too reassuring for captain Lorik Cana either as our Albanian fighter left his teammates at half -time and nothing has been said yet as to what might be wrong with him these days.

And at the end of the match, a very sad and worrying thing happened as Mamadou Niang rushed the stands to exchange a few words with supporters who were booing him the whole game, despite his great showing and the fact that he was just coming back from injury.
He even threw the armband (he received it when Cana left the pitch) on the floor, which forced Eric Gerets to immediately pick it up and ask his staff to go and try calm the player.

Here are the goals from last night:

And here I was yesterday saying that Hatem Ben Arfa should have a beautiful game. Well apparently all I needed to do was ask. Ben Arfa was yesterday the type of player we want him to become some day. Here is the wonderful free-kick he scored last night against the dutch side. It seems that he picked up some stuff at Lyon (aka the Juninho Pernambucano Free Kick Technical High-School) under the tutelage of the brazilian great. This could come in handy in the future. Way to go Hatem. Copngratulations.

Here is a longer resumé of the game.

This one will be hard, but not impossible.

The french veteran came in free of charge from Rennes for the next six months after Guy Lacombe decided not to use him anymore (he has only played six games this season). When it was clear that he wouldn’t be used much more in the second half, José Anigo proposed his name to Eric Gerets who immediately said yes. Sylvain Wiltord has played in a lot of great clubs and definitely has the experience and weight in the locker room that can be lacking sometimes. His experience will be priceless. Not to mention the fact that he always has been exemplary in his preparation and physical fitness.

One of the things we can really worry about is the fact that he hasn’t not played a whole lot this season and could potentially take a little time to adapt. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that goes.
For the record, Sylvain Wiltord will be wearing Samir Nasri’s old number.

After Robert Louis-Dreyfus’s incendiary comments from Wednesday, Pape Diouf also came out in the national press to let it be known that he was hurt. The President expressed his astonishment after reading the owner’s interview and reluctantly answered through La Provence to what he believes to be an unfair treatment. The President first expresses how disappointed he is to hear this from the press after seeing the owner last week. And then he lets us in in the power struggles that exist in the club. Robert Louis-Dreyfus’s communication expert, Vincent Labrune, aka The weezle, has longed for his job for a long time, and is now making a play for it.

What surprised Diouf and anyone with half a brain is the timing of this all. It could have been understandable when we were 19th last season, or when we were “out of the loop” three match days from the end, but now? When the club is winning points again and a new energy is being felt. It doesn’t make any sense.

To respond to his attacks on recruitment, Diouf defends his own results, pointing that when he arrived, the club was deeply in debt and that three years later we are making a lot of money. More importantly, ever since he came, we are back on every single level of decision when it comes to the Ligue and are out of courtrooms.

Speaking of Alex? His salary was a lot higher than Djibril Cissé’s. Gourcuff? It’s easy to talk about him nopw but Ben Arfa and Koné were much more coherent buys this summer. Podolski? Bayern was O.K. but the player doesn’t want to leave Germany. Adriano? He costs 1 million a month, making him the biggest salary with no insurance of performance.

This interview is very interesting. Pape Diouf states once more that he doesn’t need the money (It’s true, he was the biggest sports agent this side of the Premiership (Eto’o, Drogba, Desailly, Nasri, Dugarry…) and reminds everyone that he won’t be clinging to his chair. The man has class, can’t be doubted.

Now to Vincent Labrune, he sent a message, you don’t run Marseille from Paris, but from Marseille. This proved true many times over when Yves Marchand, Christophe Bouchet and others tried to take the daily plane from Paris to run Marseille half the time.

As for Eric Gerets, he too thinks these attacks are unfair. The Belgian technician,, in a short interview with RMC Radio, expressed the poor timing of the whole thing and stated that he believed Pape Diouf to be hurt but believes he won’t resign.

The first one out the gate was Eric Gerets who immediately talked about Modeste M’bami. You see Modeste has been trying his best to make the club let him go, talking about how he would like to “get new experiences” and that with only a year left to his contract, it would be great for the club to let him go and then receive some money in return. We’ve all seen how great Modeste played during the UEFA Cup and there’s definitely going to be a spot for him in the team during the season. After a time of hesitation, the Cameroonian midfielder decided he wanted to stay after all with the possibility to play and shine in the Champions League. The man who practically didn’t rest this summer trained really hard in his old neighborhood with childhood friend Jean II Makoun while the two were down there with the Cameroon selection and playing for the World Cup and African Cup of Nations 2010. After two seasons where he’s had a lot of difficulties getting back to it, notably coming back last season with a few extra pounds, M’bami has decided to earn his spot from the get go and is on the right track to do so. Benoit Cheyrou will have to watch out and fight for his starting position. On another note, M’bami has impressed everyone so much that a contract extension is in the works according to La Provence.

As for Renato Civelli, whose biggest feat so far since he came back is nearly killing Bakary Koné during one of his first practice session, is apparently pretty popular in Italy and newly promoted Bologna is soon to make an offer for the Argentinean centre back. After Eric Gerets told the press that neither Civelli nor Givet would be leaving and after persistent rumors sending Monaco’s ex-Captain to Greece, José Anigo said that with no less than six centre backs (Erbate, Hilton, Rodriguez, Zubar, Givet and Civelli) maybe one of them but not both could leave the club before the end of the Mercato. But Anigo added that they could be recruiting a young defender if one of them does. So we’re still not set on who will be leaving but there’s still more than a month to go.

One spot where there is definitely going to be some recruiting done is at the right-back position. Laurent Bonnart has been one of the breakout stars of our last season and the man who was originally recruited as Taïwo’s back-up is now one of the team’s leaders. Problem is he doesn’t have any back up and neither Givet nor Zubar did the business when they replaced him. So Marseille is looking to recruit someone experimented looking for one last challenge and two names have been circulating lately, Lamine Diatta and David Jemmali.
Jemmali was one of my favorite players at some point and could have played for France but Lizarazu then Sagnol were much better. Some people might tell you how he should have chosen Tunisia in the first place. He could be useful at some point in the season but I think the fact that Laurent Blanc decided not to reconduct his deal says a lot about him. Plus Jemmali is a known hot head and we really don’t need another one of those, especially if it is someone who wouldn’t be playing regularly (à la Cyril Rool when he was playing with us).
About Lamine Diatta, he was the Captain of my beloved Lions during the last African Cup of Nations and his showings were pathetic. After a season like he had in Turkey, it is now obvious that this very limited player should have gone to England when he could have (i.e. after Lyon) and he could be now cruising on his physical abilities in Division One. To sum it all up, none of these players would bring us anything we need, but if there are the only two we are going to get, let’s go with Jemmali. At least he played all of last season and seems to have some football left in him.

Let’s focus now on the two surprises of the list. First of all Karim Ziani. Ziani hasn’t played with us since the fateful Carquefou match and his altercation with Coach Eric Gerets who literally sat him down and never used him again. Ziani could have left, should have left a long time ago but the fact that he hasn’t despite interest from other clubs shows that Marseille is not willing to give up on him yet. All he showed last season was his bad temper and his lack of skills when needed be. Ziani fought Zenden, Nasri, Cissé and Cana. So him still being here shows how open-minded Eric Gerets is about all this. Let’s hope we don’t get too many hotheads in the group and lose track of what’s important.

Now the other, bigger surprise is Djibril Cissé. Everyone believed he would leave and then no one believed he would. After being left of the Domenech’s 23 (which seems to be a benediction these days), the Arlesian gave ONE interview stating his desire to go back to England where his wife lives (why hasn’t she moved to Marseille where the weather is beautiful, I have no idea!) and has been surprisingly mum ever since. He came back quietly, started training and watched strikers pile up while he was sent throughout the United Kingdom after every practice. He didn’t confirm his departure, he just trained. Then the friendlies started and the kid let his skills do the talking. Four goals two assists in 5 games, that’s impressive. Still he hasn’t said anything and after Pape Diouf stated during the Ben Arfa Rounds and the Koné negociations that Cissé would only leave if an incredible offer came our way. But according to Yahoo Sports, Cissé has been proposed to Benfica but refused the portuguese powerhouse, expressing to José Anigo and Pape Diouf his preference for England. So José Anigo came out on Monday in L’Equipe and told that Djibril had ten days to receive a serious offer from England or he would be staying one more season with us, since we wouldn’t have enough time to recruit a quality striker. Anticipating Djibril’s eventual departure, Marseille apparently contacted Barcelona’s Eidur Gudjohnsen who would apparently only be interested if we were playing the Champions league. Nothing has been done yet, everything laying in Djibril’s and the Premiership’s court. The verdict on that will be next week probably.

The Infirmary

Now let’s focus on Mathieu Valbuena. The lilliputian striker didn’t go on vacation to make sure his groin injury healed properly but after all of his vacation spent going back and forth from Marseille to Bordeaux to treat the illness, “The Moped” along with the Marseille staff decided to get an operation and will only be back in six weeks. It’s a pity for someone who was poised to be Samir Nasri’s successor as the playmaker of our team but six weeks is not that far out. He’ll come back to training with his teammates by the end of next week.

Karim Ziani will pass an MRI today as to follow up on the scar recovery of his thigh injury sustained against Nantes ten days ago. According to José Anigo, he’ll be coming back to play pretty quickly.

Benoit Cheyrou didn’t’ train with his teammates on Monday. Touched on his calf just before the Bordeaux game, he stayed with the medical staff. He won’t be ready for the Monaco game in Cannes this wednesday

Captain Lorik Cana resumed training normally after having been let to rest against Bordeaux because of a knee injury. Joining him was Ronald Zubar who was coming back from ankle injury.

Last and definitely least, Marseille has refuted this morning the information sending Chilean super-striker Humberto Suazo to the Vélodrome as said earlier by Chilean newspapers last week. “El Chupete” was a great striker two years ago with , even getting the title of World’s best goal scorer by putting 17 goals in International Compettion. He also is Chili’s best scorer ever, with 51 goals in one year with his club of Colo Colo. But Marseille has not been negociating with him and declared so this morning. he’s now playing with Monterrey in Mexico (Thanks Sam!). The club (Marseille) is said to be surprised by this rumor and has no idea where it comes from. Mexican newspaper El Norte persisted today by saying it was done, signed sealed and pretty much delivered. They’re backing-up their Sunday cover (photo) 100% and cite inside sources. Yeah! I’m going to believe the club on this one. El Norte being the same newspaper that declared Gabriel Batistuta Marseille-bound to replace Fabrizio Ravanelli in 2002.

Anyway, to get back to our beige or champagne or offically, “gold” european jerseys, here they are. Don’t mind the fact that Bolo Zenden isn’t smiling much on the picture, he just heard that Ben Arfa signed and realized he may play even less than he did last year.

As for the kjerseys itself, it will bear the N9UF Telecom logo as will the away jersey. Apparently DIRECT ENERGIE will only be on home uniforms. Whatever.
Tell me what you think of this one.

“Thursday’s match filled me with a feeling of anger. It is clear to me that the players took themselves for nababs and vizirs. In such a situation, I expect them to play a European match, played with guts. Some of the players have forgotten their duties of solidarity towards their teammates. The solution must be collective. Eric Gerets probably shares my feelings. He met with the players upon arrival at the hotel and did not hold back in telling them his way of thinking
The Sunday match at Lens should be a redemption for players who saved themselves in one way or another. It would be a pity for us to lose the benefits of our journey over the past two months, because of a few of our kids who are losing themselves”

Ouch! Pape Diouf is known for his diplomacy and his way with words but this is the raw, unfiltered version of the guy. And he’s giving ammo to the people who started saying out in the open that Samir Nasri has been saving himself for the Euro. Listen I love the kid and I really want him to stay but if we wcompare with his good friend Karim Benzema (who signed a few hours ago the extension JMA has been talking about, making him the best paid player in France with €400.000), you see two different behaviors lately. Samir has not been himself this season and still has not signed a new contract. All that has filtered after Lorik Cana, Mathieu valbuena, Mamadou Niang and Steve Mandanda signed, is that the only Marseillais of the bunch is the one not willing to stay. After last year and Madrid contacts, this could have been understandable but it is clear that he is now playing on status alone and wants to be healthy when Domenech makes his team. He was the worst player on the pitch last night and by far. I hate poitning fingers but I believe Pape Diouf was refering to him when he talks.

Sidebar – I’m not even going to talk about the first goal that was an obvious offside. Once agin, there’s no need to epilogue on this but the offside was so clear I believe the referee will need to explain us how much money Gazprom put in his kid’s piggybank. Look at this picture, it’s not one but two Zenit players who are offside. That’s not an excuse because we played pitiful but still.

Sidebar #2 – Ronald Zubar and Dédé Ayew received Bananas and monkey chants. They talked to the fourth referee and the assistant, but nothing was done. It is time UEFA starts doing something other than penalizing players. I know this would hold a ton more weight had we won, because this just sounds like whining to me but Zubar seemed even more pissed with the bananas than with the defeat. Poor guy. BTW, how do you find bananas in Saint Petersburg in March?

We’re done with our European campaign and hopefully we’ll get back to it with the Lens and Carquefou games to make sure we get eliminated by Zenit St.Petersburg a third time next year in the Champions League.

Jacques Faty left his teammates a lot earlier than expected when he felt injured again. You saw him practically crying minutes after being subbed for Ronald Zubar. Jacques definitly did not deserve to be injured agin and I hope it will turn out to be harmless.

After such an animated first half, you would’ve thought that marseille was going to slow things down a bit. Nah Son! As soon as they came back from the locker-room, our little guys started attacking again and it only took Mamadou Niang three minutes to score his goal (Any other day, I swear this would’ve meant a hat trick). Funny thing is, he touched a post for the third time, but this time it went in anyway. The ball came to him after Samir Nasri tried his luck and was countered by russian defenders, Mamad took his sweet time to bypass the whole defense and put it where Maalafeyev couldn’t touch it. Another world-calss goal.

The second goal didn’t stop anything as Marseille kept attacking and the third goal came soon enough on a perfect service by Samir Nasri once agin who gave his Captain a great pass, leaving Djibril Cissé alone with the keeper, in a situation where he rarely misses when he’s confident. He was confident.

This is when we started relaxing a bit, the 60th minute when Bolo Zenden came on to replace Mamadou Niang who felt a little pich in his thigh and didn’t want to take any risks, having so many games to play ahead of us. Plus at that moment, it seemed realistic to think that marseille was about to score at least two more goals. But the russians knew that the only thing their runner-ups of Spartak Moscow needed to qualify over us, despite our domination of both games, was that away goal that can change everything given how Marseille usually doesn’t fare too well in exotic locations such as Russia. The super-devilish Arshavin knew this and went through Ronald Zubar Fernando Torres style, giving hope to his whole side for next week. He eliminated us two years ago by scoring in the Vélodrome, let’s hope this only proves to be anecdotal.

After that goal, the attacking started again on our end but we didn’t manage to score that fourth goal.
Now I know what I said but it’s not like we did anything bad at all. I would have been super happy to sign for a 3-1 win before the match and marseille are warned anyway. They won’t be doing us like they and Dniepopetrovsk
did in the recent past. All we have to do is brave the cold once again and play like we mean it for 90 minutes. we can go through, let’s make that happen. There’s no way we gonna be taking two goals again in Russia like it happened in Moscow. In french we say “Un homme avertit en vaut deux” (I’m gonna ask Rami how to translate this, I’m pretty sure it’s “A man fore-warned is fore-armed”. If it’s not, I’ll edit this)
In the meantime, let’s focus back on the Ligue1 where we’ll be hosting Saint-Etienne this weekend for a clash of the two most beloved french clubs. I’ll settle for the same score as tonight’s.

Anyway, after Spartak Moscow, we will face tonight in the Vélodrome a very DANGEROUS side of Zenit St.Petersburg. We all remember the last time we faced them (or at least I and every single Marseille fan does, some images you just can’t get rid off. No matter how hard you try.), it was two years ago and they eliminated us at the same stage of this very competition (0-1 at the Vélodrome and 1-1 in their own stadium).

In the meantime, they became an even better team thanks to their sponsor, russian Gaz giants Gazprom and the huge amounts of money they’re ready to put in their vanity project. With dutch manager Dick Advocaat at the helm since leaving his South Korea job in july 2006, they finished 2006 at an encouraging fourth place and unsurprisingly won the 2007 championship. Today, the team that is supposed to be dominating russian football for years to come has been able to keep their best players (Andriy Arshavin, who scored in the Vélodrome if I remember correctly, wanted to leave after a few years of “sacrifices” as he put it then, they gave him 3 million euros a year, he’s leading the charge against Marseille once more tonight) while buying quality ones (They acquired last summer Shaktar Donetsk’s Anatoly Timotchouk for a bundle of cash). They have the results, the ambition that comes with it and are building a 80.000 places stadium that will supposedly be finished in 2010.

They even have the cockiness that comes with it. Case in point, their president Sergeï Foursenko goes: “We don”t fear Marseille, even with Nasri, Niang and Cissé, our players are better than theirs.”.

Marseille is warned, these people don’t play and are here to win against us. We’ve been quite guilty of some lack of concentration and humility in games against Monaco and at Auxerre this weekend but we”ll definitly have to keep being focused like we’ve been able to in the Ligue 1. Marseille can definitly win against St. Petersburg but this team can’t be overlooked. If we manage not to take any goals, we will have made a pretty important step towards the Quarterfinals.
St. Petersburg won’t be playing with their full squad though. Belgian defender Nicolas Lombaerts is injured, and two key componenets of their opposition with Villareal are suspended, defender Roman Shirokov and Czech superstar Radek Sirl. Here is the Russian group:

Keepers: Malafeev, Contofalsky
Defenders: Anyukov, Kim Dong Jin, Krizanac, Lapin, Sosnin, Lee Ho
Midfielders: Tymoschuk, Zyrianov, Ionov, Denisov, Radimov, Gorshkov, Ricksen
Strikers: Pogrebnyak, Fayzulin, Arshavin

Absent: Shirokov, Sirl (suspended), Lombaerts, Domingues, Tekke (injured), Hubocan (non qualified) Gorbunov, Lebedev, Okorokov (manager’s choices).

Marseille too is not complete either with none other than Captain Lorik Cana suspended for this first bout, Julien Rodriguez still injurzed, Elliott Grandin and Kanga Akalé not qualified for this competition. The great news is that Cédric Carasso is back as Mandanda’s backup (not that I want him to play by any means but Cédric is still an appreciated player and it fills me up with joy to see him come back).

The Marseillais

Keepers: Mandanda, Carrasso
Defenders: Bonnart, Taiwo, Krupoviesa, Faty, Givet, Zubar
Midfielders: Cheyrou, M’Bami, Kaboré, Oruma, Nasri, Ziani, Zenden, Valbuena
Strikers : Cissé, Niang, Ayew
Absences:Cana (suspended), Akalé and Grandin (non qualifiés), Rodriguez (ankle injury), L. N’Diaye (injured), Sabo, Barrillon, M’Bow, Maté, Hamel, Krstic (Eric Gerets choices).

The first problem Eric Gerets will have to face is the number of players who could be suspended if they take another yellow card tonight: Djibril Cissé, Mamadou Niang, Samir Nasri and Steve Mandanda (maybe having Carasso reporting for duty will prove to be even beytter news than expected).
Another dilemma (smaller one I’ll confess) faces Eric Gerets for tonight’s game with the absence of Cana and Rodriguez: Who’ll be his captain? Mamadou Niang, Djibril Cissé and Samir Nasri can be viable options but I’m curious as to who will be wearing the armband tonight. Even though it’s his first season, I’m leaning towards Benoit Cheyrou to take it. Anyway, not very important but still.

Stuttgart, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Juventus, Newcastle, Atletico Madrid, Blackburn and Portsmouth will all have official scouts in the stands, just so you know who could be playing in your favorite club next season.