Beaten in London by Tottenham (2-0) then at home by Frankfurt, OM had started their journey in Pool D very badly and appeared on Tuesday against Sporting weighed down by their crushing record of 16 defeats in their 17 last matches of C1.

But the only success of this ugly series, a 2-1 victory against Olympiakos in 2020, now has a successor and the Marseillais, who will go to Lisbon next week for the second leg, have found some reason to believe in a qualification for the 8th finals.

In a deserted Velodrome because sanctioned by a total camera after the incidents of the match against Frankfurt, they had however taken things the wrong way.

Blocked by Marseille road traffic, Sporting arrived at the stadium late and the start of the match had to be postponed by around twenty minutes, to the great annoyance of Igor Tudor, who came to ask the referee for an explanation. that his players had been waiting in the tunnel for several minutes.

Adam's festival

The Portuguese were late for the match, but the Marseillais were late after kick-off and it's much more annoying.

After only 51 seconds, Sporting was indeed leading in the score thanks to winger Trincao, author of a nice shot in the side netting after having been embarrassed neither by Nuno Tavares, nor by Leonardo Balerdi, nor by Jordan Veretout.

Everything was then in place for a new European disaster and it took a good save from Pau Lopez in the 9th minute against Marcus Edwards to keep OM alive.

Then Antonio Adan came on the track and he took care of almost everything.

The Spanish goalkeeper first released a harmless ball on the foot of Alexis Sanchez, fiercely came to the laundry to restart the match (1-1, 13th).

Not very nice, the Chilean's goal, OM's first in the Champions League since... 2013 and a goal by Souleymane Diawara, did indeed weigh heavily.

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Because on a shot badly repelled by Adan, Sanchez then quickly scored a new goal, canceled for offside.

On the next free kick, the Spanish goalkeeper sent a direct throw to Mattéo Guendouzi and two passes later, OM had taken the lead, Amine Harit heading in the impeccable center of Jonathan Clauss (2-1, 16th) .

"To Arms"

But the Sporting goalkeeper had not yet finished doing everything upside down and, in the 23rd minute, he concluded his masterpiece with a rough hand outside the box, worth an indisputable red card.

In front of the score and 11 against 10, OM quietly drove home the point with a third goal signed Balerdi from a header from a corner (28th), just before one of the rare bad news of the evening, the injury of Clauss.

While their calendar remains extremely dense, with the reception of Ajaccio on Saturday which should allow them to consolidate their place at the top of the Ligue 1 table, OM then did not force their talent or burn too much energy.

The second period was thus without history or spark, Marseille contenting themselves until the goal of Mbemba (4-1, 84th) to manage their advantage and Tudor the playing times of each other.

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Badly started, the Croat's evening therefore ended very well, with even in the last moments a proud "To Arms" launched by the handful of guests and authorized accredited above his bench.

© 2022 AFP