While the football community was waiting for the Moroccan star Azzedine Onahi to move to one of the big teams in England, Spain or Italy, French Marseille announced the inclusion of the player Angers for 10 million euros and a contract that extends until 2027.

The Marca newspaper describes Marseille's success in annexing Onahi as "a masterpiece in administrative work" and "the Mercato winter deal."

And the newspaper continues that the player "is one of the rising stars and one of the best players in the World Cup in Qatar, and Marseille was able to do a great job after the World Cup to convince Onahi (born in 2000), despite the player's association with moving to senior Europe."

Onahi starred remarkably with the Moroccan national team in the World Cup in Qatar, and was a candidate for the best young player award in the tournament.

And the official account of Marseille on Twitter published a video clip of Onahi, during which he appears in shirt number "8".

Jean-Pierre Babin, the former star and one of the most prominent scorers in French football and Marseille club throughout history, was in the reception of Onahi.

🇲🇦 𝘼𝙯𝙯𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙊𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙝𝙞 𝙚𝙣 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙖 🔥

El mediocampista marroquí firmó su contrato y es 𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲 𝗢𝗹𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗻 🔵⚪️#AzzedineEstRNOlympien pic.J0vg.j0vgk

- Olympique de Marseille 🇪🇸🇦🇷🇨🇱 (@OM_Espanol) January 29, 2023

And the "Marca" report quoted sources in the French club as saying, "The transfer was a surprise to everyone, but in Marseille we were working hard and effort to include the player even before his talent exploded in the World Cup, and after the tournament we intensified our efforts and outperformed the big teams who were betrothed to him."

The story of the young midfielder began with Angers (occupies the last place in the league standings table), a modest French club he played with in all age groups, but Onahi was prominent among the players, and for this “we have been following him for a long time and watched him closely, he was already a player.” Very well," according to the Marseille source who spoke to Marca.

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After the World Cup, Marseille began to accelerate its steps to include the player, but his performance in the tournament and the spotlight on him increased the demand for contracting with him, and therefore the French club adopted a policy of calm and passing the post-World Cup period, because the team had already gone halfway to contracting with the player, and after that He restarted the deal engines when everything became normal, and they paid 8 million euros in addition to two million in variables, according to Marca.

And French reports confirmed that Marseille agreed with Angers that, in addition to the ten million, there is a large percentage that the club will get from resale in the future.

The price surprised many, but the post-world summer market - according to the source - is not the same as the post-World Cup winter market, as the winter mercato is secondary and not essential in contracts.

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But what was Onahi's opinion?

Was he excited about the deal?

The source replies that Onahi is a "clever and mature player", and in the negotiation process he had people he trusted who were very involved in football (ex-high level European players) who advised him well and helped him on a daily basis.

The big question: moving to England, Italy or France?

Onahi had a large list of options at first, but with the departure of the Premier League teams, he had to choose Italy or France, and the choice was difficult.

The source explains that he chose to continue in the French League, he is still 22 years old and has a wonderful future and a lot ahead of him, but he wants short and firm steps. He may not be able to stand out there, and he has many details that must be worked on and developed, while there was a stumbling block in Italy due to societal issues, and these two factors affected the decision of the young star, and during this ambiguous period Marseille entered the line and settled the deal, his place was in France. ".