If the Marseillais targeted the referee after their defeat against Sporting (1-2), Wednesday evening in the Champions League, the real culprit lies elsewhere.
It was a match that could have allowed OM to move to the right side in this Champions League. But while they were leading the score on the Sporting pitch, thanks to a gem from Igor Paixao (14e), the Marseillais got their feet wet (1-2) on Wednesday evening. The second yellow card distributed to Emerson Palmieri before the break (45e+2), for a simulation in the area, tilted the match in favor of the Portuguese.
A big disappointment for Roberto De Zerbi and his players, who took down the Slovenian referee, Mr. Obrenovic, with the Italian coach accusing him of not being “not suitable for a match of this level”. But if certain whistle blows were indeed able to come as a surprise, the person responsible for the defeat was not necessarily the one the Olympians targeted. For Walid Acherchour, the culprit was in the Ciel et Blanc locker room, in the person of “RDZ”.
Roberto De Zerbi singled out after Sporting-OM
“On his reading of the match, it’s zerohe blurted out on the set of Winamax FC. You take a blow to the back of the head with Emerson, the red card, and then you take two balls, with the exit of Vermeeren who is for me the best midfielder in the first half – you don’t understand his exit –, and the exit of Greenwood in place of Paixao. » A cautious tactical option on the part of the Marseille coach, which did not pay off.
“I thought that he was going to take out Paixao and that Greenwood, behind Aubameyang, was going to make the link between the midfielders and the striker to try to continue to represent a fear for the opponentcontinues the consultant, very disappointed with the choices of the transalpine technician. For me, Vermeeren, in this defensive possession role, is the best player on your team. He’s the guy who will manage the tempo, and he did it very well eleven against eleven. »
“He gave us a funny reading of the match”
“So I, honestly, didn’t understand at all. And then what bothers me with De Zerbi is that he is a coach who has always talked about courage and ambition. He said after Real Madrid that he was very, very proud of his team even though there had been talk of scuttling, of sometimes suicidal restarts. He said: ‘My team must play like this in all circumstances’. But this evening, he misrepresents his team, he denies himself only to be beaten in the end.”he insists.
And Walid Acherchour concludes: “It’s not De Zerbi’s DNA, it’s not what he wants to develop. He gave us a funny reading of the match and he took the result in stride. » A result which plunges Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and his teammates to 18e
place in this league phase, with still 3 points on the clock. And will therefore force them to react on November 5, at the Vélodrome stadium, against Atalanta Bergamo.