So close….

By: Magnusson | October 25th, 2007

Marseille and Porto gave us one of the more pleasant games of this matchday (not as pleasant as Arsenal’s display but hey! those games happen once a year). The game was not an offensive festival but how great both teams played is a testament of the quality in this group. Marseille relied as expected on more physical toughness than technical skill, some of our wizards (Nasri, Ziani…) being unable to play against the potuguese. They brought their technicians in full effect and if Quaresma is still as gifted as he was, Laurent Bonnard has been able to litterally musel him all night long, undoubtedly being one of the principal actors of the result. Quaresma was so frustrated he started throwing elbows at some point.

But what I appreciated the most was that at the end of the match, everybody on both teams left with a smile on their faces and jerseys were exchanged as should be.
We could linger all day about how there were no penalty and that Lisandro faked it and all, but the truth is Porto could have scored twice during the first half (Raul Mereiles hitting the post twice and Steve Mandanda making sure Stéphane Carasso stays stressed the fuck out while watching the game from the presidential suite) and Porto could have been way up if not for a very strong keeper.

Now the second half was ours and Mamadou Niang could have scored twice before he actually did (I particularly loved the selfless way Cissé passed him the ball). Now I was extremely satisfied for Niang because he hasn’t scored much this season and he has been giving particularly encouraging displays for marseille since he came off his last injury. Now Cissé getting booed when he was being substituted hurt even my feelings and I was insulting him in front of the T.V.
The proclem with Djibril is that he’s still playing like he can oupeed everyone on the planet but staellite he’s not anymore. But we kjnow he’s strong enough (or dumb enough, that’s your choice really) mentally not to care what the fans think. This happened last year and he finished with fifteen goals ‘all compettions). So I hope Gerets keeps him in the squad at least a few more games.
Marseille will keep getting better and I think we’ll be fine. We won’t go near Lyon but we can have a very good season both domestically and in Europe. Now let’s hope Samir gets enough rest.
Here is a ten minute resumé of last night’s game.