A sigh of relief…

By: Magnusson | September 18th, 2007

Marseille earned tonight their first home victory in the 2007/2008 season against Besiktas Istanbul. It was about damn time too. I am ecstatic as any fan would be for numerous reaons.

First of all, I’m pretty relieved that we won this game at home. I know this sounds ridiculous but i was hearing way too much “Vélodrome syndrome” and Paris comparisons these last few days. Journalists trying to rationalize some kind of fear the players would feel towards the stadium and our notoriously ferocious fans. And thank god it’s over with, because I would hate to hear Pape Diouf sound like Alain Cayzack when you see how much trouble there has been in the last months between fans and players at the PSG. We don’t need those problems in here, we have enough of our own.

Second of all, I’m pretty happy Albert Emon gets to keep his job for at least another week. I really do like the coach and it would be a shame for us to lose such a beloved and competent man. No matter how prestigious the names of his potential replacements are.

On another note, I am particularly satisfied that our team showed the spirit and ambition everybody was waiting for. The first half was far from stellar on our end but it is more the context than the opponent that paralyzed us. It was pretty worrysome to see some of our more technically gifted players stutter their football during the first half-hour. Anywho, the team were psychologically strong enough to wait and build their victory by waiting for a physically limited team to try anything they had and to just let our talent speak for itself.
Something that’s also worth noting is how some players have offered us their best performance of the season yet (Karim Ziani was definitly our MVP tonight) and that’s very encouraging. We’ll get some more time to work all the kinks of the new organization but this team showed tonight what everybody was expecting saturday. The Champions Leaue soundtrack has that kind of effect on a lot of people.

Now let’s not get carried away, we played against the weakest team of the group, and we showed some febrility during the whole game. That febrility, even if I believe was not caused by the opponenet, was responsible for five of our players to get yellow cards (Rodriguez, Faty, Nasri, Cissé, Valbuena) and to be totally honest both Cissé and Faty could have been sent off and we couldn’t have contested the decision. The turkish side was technically gifted and played a lot less ruggedly than one could have imagined or predicted but they were not very threatening up top, Steve Mandanda having to intervene only once in each half. Suprisingly though, our captain Lorik Cana managed to dominate the midfield alone without getting booked. This will definitly prove to be a blessing when we have to play Porto or Liverpool.

Our tactical dispoition was clearly meant for us to attack this game and to win it by creating a lot of plays for our strikers. If that didn’t happen as much as we would have hoped for, some sequences were more than promising. Mamadou Niang and Ziani offering some nice alternative to Nasri on the forefront. Sadly though, Zenden still doesn’t seem to be i the rythm and didn’t weigh in the game as much as one could have hoped for but his constant communication with both Cana and Nasri was one of the key in this game. Bolo wil definitly be needed for his extensive experience in the competition but Gragnic showed more in 25 minutes than he did the whole game.

Marseille is technically the leader of the group now that Porto and Liverpool drew. We had to win our first game and we did. Not that the rankings matter at this point, but this will show them that The Merseyside Club is far from being untouchable. Even with Gerrard and Torres.

Let’s now criticize the so-called “Best fans in France“. I know a lot of them complained for the steep prices for these tickets (200 euros for the three game pack if you’re not a season ticket hoder) but 20.000 empty seats is a little too much. People cannot complain and say the players aren’t up to the club’s standards if the fans themselves don’t bother showing up. We were promised a wonderful tifo for our game back into the Champions League and that lackluster performance of our fans was more than disappointing. Let’s hope they show up next time when the tickets cost less. I know for a fact that Lille supporters filled the Stade de France two years ago when they were playing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. Marseille fans were not up to par tonight. Better step their own game up against Lens on the 20th of October.

And no matter what they say, I love the new jerseys. It may be a little too light compared to the South Winners colors, but it’s still pretty dope. Let’s hope they prove themselves lucky and we get to win a lot of games in them. Now here are the videos for the two goals we scored tonight. The first one is by Julien Rodriguez on a Samir Nasri corner-kick and the second one is totally built by Djibril Cissé for himself. He did what he does best, control, run and flick it. No matter the keeper, this is what made him famous.

Now I know most people know the rivalry between french clubs but I would like to wish Inara’s boys a lot of luck tomorow. After having watched both games on saturday, I can pretty safely predict that Lyon won’t lose tommorow. I even bet some dough they will upset the Blaugrana. They like spanish sides and Barcelona’s not ready yet. We’ll see how it turns out but best of luck to the other Olympique.