Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin with Jean-François Pérès
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8:52 p.m., May 24, 2023
Two matches from the end of the Ligue 1 season, Olympique de Marseille right-back Jonathan Clauss spoke honestly and critically on the show. Europe 1 Sport (every evening from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. live on Europe 1). From the results of his season with the Marseille club to his non-selection with the Blues for the World Cup in Qatar, through his relationship with the managers of the Marseille locker room, the former Lensois has shown transparency at the microphone of Jean -François Pérès and Stéphane Burgatt.
A “frustrating” season
Although Olympique de Marseille is having a successful season in the league with 73 points after 36 days and a good provisional third place synonymous with play-offs for the Champions League, Jonathan Clauss expected better. Regarding the OM season, “I will not put the word failure. I will put the word frustrating rather because if we make a general point, obviously good things have happened this year. But there are a lot of frustration: we lost at home in the Coupe de France, we lost a lot of points in Ligue 1. We are frustrated because we could have done better I think and we should have done better”, analyzed the footballer under contract with Marseille until 2025.
The latter refers in particular to a few key matches of the season, including the one lost in Lens, where second place in the Ligue 1 standings was at stake: “I am thinking of details, of physical freshness. But there are times when We won matches when we were perhaps not the best team on the pitch and sometimes we lost points when we were clearly the best team on the pitch. It’s football and we know what we have to work on precisely to no longer regret these points at the end of the following season, to play at the top of the table.”
Failure in the Coupe de France: “A professional fault”
But one of OM’s biggest failures this year remains their surprise and premature elimination from the Coupe de France against Annecy. And two months later, Jonathan Clauss still does not take off, this defeat against a poorly ranked Ligue 2 remains “a failure”. According to him, it could have been frustration if it had happened against a Ligue 1 resident. But against Annecy, the defender even speaks of “professional misconduct.” “In the locker room, it was difficult to get over that because there was a part of incomprehension in this result. But I think to get over it despite everything, even if in the desire and in the determination we were there. There is still this psychological part which is not yet fully recovered from the failure”, he confessed in Europe 1 Sport.
For Jonathan Clauss, the Marseillais have “poorly approached” this match. “Perhaps we took it as a formality and we said to ourselves that by leaving Rennes, that by leaving Paris, the Coupe de France was going to be for us. There is the magic of the Cup but for us it is the sadness of the Coupe de France to get out like that. We did not have the right”, reacted with regret and disappointment the man with six selections with the Blues.
A “not completely successful” season with OM
Arriving at Olympique de Marseille during the 2022 summer transfer window, Jonathan Clauss also delivered an initial assessment of his season with the Marseille club. A club whose “craze” surprised him a lot. “It goes beyond just ‘Marseille.’ this year. The fans, the Vélodrome and Olympique de Marseille in all that entails, it was a surprise because I had prepared for something and that something was increased tenfold. I knew that I I was going to have a big challenge and that this challenge I knew I had to face.
Current OM’s best passer with 11 assists delivered this season, and second in the general classification of the League just behind the Argentinian Lionel Messi, Jonathan Clauss believes “there are the stats that speak” for him. “I’m progressing in my first three years in Ligue 1, so obviously in that aspect, I’m happy. Afterwards, there was a somewhat complicated period after the World Cup. less well. Where I feel strong is that mentally, I managed to get up. And in these cases, I who have not always had confidence in myself, I realize that by my decisions, by my initiative, I managed to reverse the trend,” said the 30-year-old player. The latter, however, speaks of a season “not completely successful” and hopes to do better next season.
“I will be there”
Next season he should perform at Olympique de Marseille. Under contract until 2025 with the club, Jonathan Clauss revealed exclusively in Europe 1 Sport “not to want to leave this summer”. “I have discussed it with everyone. There is no reason for me to leave. Unless something extraordinary, I will be there this summer”, he then assured. He also hopes to evolve with other of his teammates for another year.
Expected to leave because of their differences with coach Igor Tudor, the futures of Dimitri Payet and again Mattéo Guendouzi are uncertain with OM. “I have affinities with both. Today, I don’t have an answer on the future of each. Honestly, it pisses me off since they are two people that I appreciate enormously on and outside the field. Afterwards, if they have to go elsewhere, it will be unfortunate for us. But if they stay, good for us. It’s hard to anticipate because the season is not over and because the transfer window is going to s open and the summer is long. We all know those kinds of stories.”
And if some players have somewhat complicated relations with the Croatian coach, this is not the case for Jonathan Clauss who understands the requirement requested by the technician. “He is outwardly as he is inwardly. He doesn’t cheat on anyone, he doesn’t pretend to be someone he’s not. And it’s tough, it’s strict, but that’s his vision. things. We adapt. So of course there are frictions from time to time. But hey, we have a lot of frictions with our parents, so why wouldn’t we have some with a coach?” questioned the defender before continuing: “He is in his image. But whether we like it or not, he has results today.”
World Cup in Qatar: “I was disappointed”
The most difficult moment of the season for Jonathan Clauss remains his non-selection with the Blues for the World Cup in Qatar. Selected six times by Didier Deschamps before the World Cup, the latter was not selected for the world competition last winter. A disappointment that he wanted to conceal for a time but which finally caught up with it: “I wanted to do the one who was not touched or in any case the one who reacted in the best possible way, that is to say to be good on the pitch. But I wasn’t after the World Cup. I thought I had digested. I was disappointed. I expected something and that something, I didn’t get it So obviously, I had also come to terms with the idea that at some point, I might not be there. But at the time of the decision, it is sure that it is not easy. And then afterwards, we resume, we resume the season and I say to myself: ‘Come on, I’m going, I’m going ahead.’ But afterwards, it catches up with you because there are things that you have the impression to digest at the same time and that in fact, you take a little longer to digest”, admitted the former Lensois.
“A vicious circle” from which the player gradually emerges a few months after this frustrating failure. He admits it, Jonathan Clauss “tumbled” but he is now in the process of reassembling it. “We are not robots. The decisions impact us. Every time I tell myself I go to training, I think about it. mud for a while. But that’s how it is.” But Jonathan Clauss now seems to have turned the page on this painful episode. Even if he keeps the France team in a corner of his head, “he doesn’t fixate on it”. “What I want is to be very good for my club. For the rest, if it happens, it’s wonderful, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t matter”, concluded the Olympian with philosophy.