Let’s not get ahead of ourselves….

By: Magnusson | October 24th, 2007

I know all eyes will be on us after the game we offered football fans everywhere a few weeks ago at Anfield. Everybody will be looking for us to confrim that result and some people may even put us as favorites against Porto tomorrow night in Marseille. Granted the game we played against the last finalist of the Champions League was amazing on many levels.

First of all we hadn’t won in a very long time, our coach had just been fired and our players were out to prove themselves to our new coach. But it would be intellectually dishonnest for us to belive that the team Liverpool put on the pitch would have been the same if the opponent were Barcelona (or even more reallistically Lyon.). The truth is Benitez showed how little he cared with that lineup and we seized that opportunity to surprise the hell out of evrybody, inclusding ourselves.

Now that Marseille has finally achieved success at home in the Ligue 1 this weekend by beating Lens with the shortest of margins, everybody will be looking for other signs. Has our season really began and has the mayonnaise (or, given the city ’s specialty, the aïoli) finally taken. Well we’ll have plenty of time to see that tonight.

This game is very important for both teams. These teams were both supposed to be playing second fiddle while Liverpool was cruising at the top of this group. Now both have legitimate chances at getting a spot to the knockout stages of this competition and they will definitly play for the win. Marseille managed to win its first two games (2-0 at home against Besiktas and the aforementionned 0-1 at Anfield against Liverpool) while Porto who drew Liverpool in the opening game also defeated the turkish side in Match Day 2.

If marseille wins tonight, they’ll basically be sure to get to a knockout stage (either the Champions League or the UEFA Cup) no matter what happens later in this campaign. If Porto wins, the portuguese will be in an ideal position to get the top spot as they’ll host two games in the final three of the group stage.

Both teams are arguably equal skill-wise with a little edge to Porto who have only lost one game yet this season and who have been able to overcome the loss of some key-players this summer with a lot more ease than we did. Plus they still have many world-class talents capable of creating a decision anytime with a stroke of genius. But none more world-class than Ricardo Quaresma. The man who can easily say he’s José Anigo’s favorite player of last season. Seriously he said all season long that Cristiano Ronaldo was less skilled than Quaresma and that if RQ7 was playing in England, he would be a serious contender for the Ballon d’Or (I think he was happy to see that even if his baby boy Samir Nasri didn’t make the list, Quaresma is one of the 50 nominees). Quaresma will be on the pitch tomorrow and we’ll see if Anigo was right. We know he’s good but has trarely been stellar at this level.

Historically, I can only tell you last time Porto played at the velodrome, they were on their way to win the competition and eliminated us with a coach nobody knew then, José Mourinho. Which was definitly for the better since we moved on and managed to get to the final of the UEFA Cup when we lost To Rafael Benitez’s Valencia.

During that game, Mourinho saw early what all of Europe was about to see, that Didier Drogba was already one of the best player in the world. The rest is history, 48 hours after he arrived at Chelsea, Mourinho asked for one player and one player only, Didier Drogba. This video of Mourinho speaking very good french with french football legend and now jouralist on Canal+ José Touré is worth a lot. He talks about his love of Chelsea and how he was already talking to Drogba at halftime during thaat Porto game. He also talks about the source of “The special One” nickname. One of the best interviews i’ve seen of Coach mourinho.

Back to tonight’s game…

We all saw ex-Marseille player Rui Barros who is now the assistant coach at Porto this weekend in the Vélodrome. It was even more funny because most spies come and leave unnoticed. The Marseille staff kind of embarrassed him by asking him to come on the pitch and be saluted like all ex-players, including Papin, before the game started. I hope this disturbed him enough for him to take bad notes.
Marseille will not be playing with all its players, Samir Nasri is still recovering for the meningitis-like virus but is running again with Fiorèse and the other outcasts. Julien Rodriguez hurt his thigh sunday night against Lens. Karim Ziani will not be at the stadium because Gerets wants him to get a little rest since he was also subject to a few hard encounters with the northern defense. The good news being that Taye Taïwo will be back from suspension and reporting for duty.

Here is our group:
Keeperss - Mandanda, Hamel
Defenders – Givet, Faty, Zubar, Taiwo, Bonnart
Midfielders - Cana, MBami, Cheyrou, Oruma, Valbuena, Zenden
Strikers - Arrache, Cissé, Niang, Ayew, Moussilou

The managers Eric Gerets and Jesualdo Fereira have been giving each others pats on the back for the way their respective teams have been playing. Both not showing any signs of nervousness though since both hardly believe they could come out victorious of this bout.
I won’t even try to guess the lineup. We’ll see soon enough
Now everybody will be rooting for the oranges.

Edit- Here is the official line-up

#MANDANDA
#BONNART #ZUBAR #FATY #GIVET
#CANA (c) #CHEYROU
#NIANG #VALBUENA #ZENDEN
#CISSE