Top or flop ? Expected for a long time at OM, the Marseille club formalized its arrival on Twitter on Tuesday August 9. A look back at the eventful journey of the Chilean footballer.
He has everything to become a star of our Ligue 1. The Chilean international striker with 143 caps Alexis Sánchez has signed up with the Olympique de Marseille club. He will wear number 70 and has already caused quite a crowd upon his arrival at Marseille airport. It must be said that he has everything to please the Marseille ultras, not only does he score many goals but in addition he will bring his grinta, his fighting character. Alexis Sánchez has come a long way. Born into a poor family, his father abandoned him when he was only a few months old and was adopted by his uncle. Trained in Cobreola, a club located in the Atacama desert in Chile, he began his European adventure when he was transferred to the Italian club Udinese in 2006. Loaned on multiple occasions “El niño maravilla” ended up there play three seasons. Voted football’s best hope in 2011, he finally signed for FC Barcelona.
It is at Barça that he will start to become a great player. Under the aegis of Pep Guardiola, he is playing his first Champions League campaign which will end in the semi-finals, thus becoming the first Chilean player to reach this stage of the competition. The confirmation comes when he is transferred to Arsenal, the summer of 2014, after a successful World Cup in the national jersey with 2 goals and an assist, for the sum of 32 million euros. For three seasons, he was decisive in more than half of his team’s goals (142 games for 72 goals and 37 assists). This thirst for victory, he expresses it on the official site of Arsenal: “I cannot be happy with a draw or a defeat. It makes me very sad”. A thirst for victory and individual performances that earned him a tenth place in the Ballon d’Or in 2015, the best result for a Chilean player.
Champions League goal
But since 2017, the Chilean has been multiplying injuries, especially muscular ones, and struggling to chain matches. By way of comparison, over the past four seasons, Alexis Sánchez has played 1300 minutes on average. Far behind the 4230 minutes played during his last season with Arsenal… In search of an experienced player to play in the Champions League, OM is therefore trying the Alexis Sánchez bet despite questions about his physical condition. The Chilean terminated his contract with Inter Milan on Monday, before signing an agreement in principle with OM on Tuesday evening. In any case, the player is still as ambitious as ever. “It’s a dream to win the Champions League,” he said on Chile Radio Sport. Leading OM to conquer the Holy Grail, thirty years after 1993 would be a colossal feat.