Marseilles (AFP)
The new Marseille coach Jorge Sampaoli takes office at OM on Monday with a first meeting with his players on the menu, we learned from the club, the day after the crushing defeat suffered against fans of Canet-en-Roussillon in the Coupe de France (2-1).
The Argentinian is due to meet the Marseille players on Monday afternoon subject to a negative PCR test, it was specified within the club.
The technician, who arrived from Brazil last Tuesday, had since been placed in septaine to rule out any contamination with Covid-19.
No details on the content of the "meeting" between the new coach and his players - discussions, scrubbing, training - was given by the club, which must face Rennes on Wednesday for a late Ligue 1 match at the Vélodrome (7:00 p.m.).
After a month of February plagued by a succession of crises (invasion of the Commandery, dismissal of André Villas-Boas, change of president, express visit of the owner Frank McCourt), the first contact between the Marseillais and their new coach comes in a context still darkened by the pitiful elimination suffered Sunday in the round of 16 of the Coupe de France against Canet-en-Roussillon (National 2, fourth division).
For the last meeting of interim Nasser Larguet on the bench, the Olympians fell very low and let slip a competition that could have offered them a European qualification at the end of the season, suggesting to the explosive Sampaoli the magnitude of the task ahead.
Remained in Marseille in front of a television screen, the Argentinian had to measure the amount of work and the treasures of psychology that he will have to deploy from Monday to put this team back on track.
This new embarrassing failure weighs down even more the season of OM, already eliminated inglorious from the group stage of the Champions League this fall, and which only has Ligue 1 (8th) to hope to grab a European place in the spring.
Behind the scenes, the upheavals have continued in recent days, with the dismissal of Thierry Aldebert, former security manager who became responsible for operating the stadium, revealed on Friday by L'Equipe, or the uncertainty around the future of Hugues Ouvrard, "Head of Football" named by Jacques-Henri Eyraud and hated by the supporters.
© 2021 AFP