The evening could have been very good for OM. After ten years of repeated failures against Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG) at the Stade-Vélodrome, the Marseille club did not come far from bringing down the ogre of Ligue 1, Sunday October 24 at the end of the 11th championship day (0-0).
Eleven against ten for more than half an hour, after the expulsion of Parisian Achraf Hakimi (57e), the Marseillais did not however succeed in scoring the goal that already supercharged stands were waiting for. OM are finally content with a draw. And can even expect to see the point that she has gleaned from the leader of the championship to be soon deducted by the disciplinary committee of the Professional Football League (LFP), as the match was peppered with incidents.
In front of journalists, Dimitri Payet, the Marseille captain, was clear on the subject. “Thank you to the public who set the fire, but I also saw bottles, chargers, lighters… Some slip, we risk losing points. We can’t say that these people like OM ”, regretted the Marseille player.
In a press conference, his trainer Jorge Sampaoli did not want to clearly express his feelings. But his drawn features and closed face spoke volumes about his frustration. The missed opportunities of this last half hour in numerical superiority like this incredible failure of Konrad De La Fuente (77e), or the two free kicks badly negotiated by Dimitri Payet, visibly haunted his memory.
The Parisian quartet did not show much
PSG, he arrived with ten points ahead and one game more than his opponent in the evening. He leaves with the same capital but still without real certainty. At the start of the season where it shines only intermittently, Paris had nevertheless made this trip to Marseille a priority objective. The proof, on the ground, the Parisian coach Mauricio Pochettino aligned his most attractive team, with his stars Neymar, Messi, Mbappé, Di Maria in attack.
In the end, the quartet did not reveal much. “The team showed solidarity, with character, well organized”, retained the Parisian coach, almost the only one to estimate that his training had been the best on the ground. “Too bad to have played forty minutes in inferiority but, even in its situations, we controlled the match”, also said an unperturbed Pochettino.
We could summarize the first half in a story of video refereeing. Even before the quarter of an hour of play, the visitors were denied a first goal. On a recovery from Di Maria followed by a small lob pass, Neymar missed his shot and the Marseillais Luan Peres scored against his camp, suddenly extinguishing the fury of the Vélodrome. But, as the whole stadium seemed to be taking it for granted, as the ball was in the center circle, the referee canceled the goal. At the 20e minute, reverse scenario. In a stadium that had just exploded, the success signed Arkadiusz Milik, OM’s center forward, was erased. His teammate, Pol Lirola, who had just offered him the ball, was also judged offside by a few millimeters. It took all the experience and the coolness of Benoît Bastien, the evening referee, who was leading his eighth OM-PSG, to make these decisions without trembling.
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