Olympique de Marseille is not coming out of prison. Despite their festival in the first leg at the Stade Vélodrome against Villarreal (4-0), the Marseille club found a way to tremble in Spain, on Thursday, March 14, in the second leg of the Europa League round of 16. Defeated 3-1, Marseille reached the quarterfinals of the competition.
Lille, involved in the Europa Conference League, had the clever idea of calmly managing their simple victory in the first leg in Austria (3-0) against Sturm Graz without trembling, despite a small draw (1-1) at home on Thursday afternoon. LOSC reached the quarter-finals of a European festival for the first time in its history.
So the seventh is, in spite of everything, the right one. After six eliminations in the round of 16 European competitions – five in the UUEFA Cup or Europa League, one in the Champions League – Lille managed to reach the quarter-finals, in this case inside the continental third place with the Europa Conference League. After their demonstration in southeastern Austria (3-0), the northern club secured what seemed inevitable given the difference in grades between the two clubs, at the end of a match in which they necessarily controlled their lead. .
The word control is the most appropriate to describe this match: coach Paulo Fonseca took advantage of the transparent merit acquired in the first leg to box several players accustomed from the beginning to the substitutes’ bench, such as Vito Mannone in goal, Ayyoub Bouaddi in the center of the box, Rémy Cabella on the left wing and Yusuf Yazici up front.
The Portuguese did not have a national team as he did not yet have the advantages of his three winter signings: Andrej Ilic, Tiago Morais and Rafael Fernandes, all of whom are injured.
In this configuration, his players struggled to get into the game, dragged down by the moment of the Austrian league. After a quarter of an hour, the typhoon passed and the first half developed without much rhythm until Lille’s Tiago Santos goal (43′), who opened the scoring in the middle of a forest of players, with a good serve by Haraldsson (1-0).
But LOSC lost their merit a few minutes later, when Mika Biereth extended a header from her husband Gregory Wüthrich to equalize after a corner kick (1-1, 45-1).
Paulo Fonseca, very cautious before the game, called on his captain Benjamín André at half-time, as well as Angel Gomes and Jonathan David. But, apart from an attempt by Yazici that blocked Jaros, the approximately 17,000 fans showing up at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Still, Lille has crossed a historical frontier on its own scale. It may even happen more at this festival where Aston Villa, who eliminated Ajax Amsterdam at the same time, look stronger.
It’s a fact: after five consecutive victories at the start of his tenure, coach Jean-Louis Gasset suffered his first defeat at the helm of Olympique de Marseille, on Thursday afternoon at Villarreal (3-1). But consolation, this defeat doesn’t matter, thanks to the first-leg festival that gave Marseille a comfortable four-goal cushion.
Salvation came at the end of added time, when Jonathan Clauss finished off a very good move by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (3-1, 90′ 4). OM has avoided the indignity of a “comeback”, which has only happened once in the history of European football after a 4-0 in the first leg: it was Paris SG who suffered it, against Barcelona (6-1).
The OM prevailed, although at first one might think that the Spaniards themselves were not there. The stadium was half empty, goalkeeper Pepe Reina had withdrawn at the last minute, the situations did not seem to be right. .
But OM temporarily gave the Yellows reason for hope. Jean-Louis Gasset had opted for a moderate turnover, as well as a reinforced defense with five players. But his players had to face the challenge at the back with a first half far from the criteria of commitment. demanded and promised, as well as a multitude of poor possible options on the rare occasions when they had the ball at their feet in an intelligent position.
Marcelino’s men, who started the season on the Marseille bench before being sacked after seven games, have gradually settled into the opposition half. It was Frenchman Etienne Capoue who discovered the first chance, with a header, after a very intelligent collective move against the Spaniards (1-0, 32′). At half-time, Amine Harit and Aubameyang came on to create a more convincing risk and the duo immediately sprang into action. But Aubameyang squandered the chance in the 48th minute, which could have ended the suspense once and for all.
Instead, Villarreal counter-attacked and Sorloth doubled the lead in the 55th minute, after another sublime move by Guedes and an endless of his position in the VAR (2-0). At that moment, concern gripped the Marseille camp. Leonardo Balerdi arguably put his hands to his temples to inspire his teammates to keep a cool head, but every ball was painful, in the atmosphere of a frenetic arena.
With a reflex save, Pau López prevented the 3-0 with a header from Gerard Moreno (72), but perhaps did nothing against Yerson Mosquera’s goal, who made the unimaginable believable in the 85th minute (3-0).
Aubameyang and Clauss ended up saving OM, but this setback in Spain may leave some marks. It shows that OM’s fragility has not suddenly disappeared in a month and Rennes, on Sunday in Ligue 1, was able to do so.
“I went through all the states and at 3-0, like a lot of people, I thought the worst,” admitted Jean-Louis Gasset. We waited until the end to close the debate. This means that OM is still recovering, in terms of technical and event dominance. “
“I’m proud of my players. We played a great game and in general the result doesn’t seem fair to me in both games,” said Villarreal coach Marcelino.
Marseille will see the draw for the Europa League quarter-finals on Friday. His European dream survived, albeit narrowly.
Leaders Liverpool and AC Milan softened their position in the Europa League quarterfinals on Thursday, joined by Bayer Leverkusen, who came close to a big defeat to Qarabag.
The Germans won 2-0 at home through their modest Azerbaijani rivals, who had the idea of inflicting their first defeat of the season on Bayer and also getting rid of them, as the two groups had quickly separated in the first leg (2-0). 2), at the end of an attack in which the German club had already had to come back from two goals down.
After a goal from Fripomp in the 72nd minute, a brace from Patrik Schick in added time (90-3 and 90-7) allowed the Bundesliga leaders, who had been promised the title with a ten-point lead over Bayern Munich, Victoria. It is the 37th game without losing (3-2).
It was much calmer for Liverpool, who once ago crushed Sparta Prague 6-1, after the correction already inflicted in the first leg (5-1), and for AC Milan who showed their superiority over Slavia (4-2 in the first leg). Milan’s only problem was the departure of French foreign goalkeeper Mike Maignan, who suffered a knee injury during a collision with a player from the Czech club.
Drawn 2-2 at home, Benfica managed to secure their place in the quarter-finals with a 1-0 win over Glasgow Rangers. West Ham had it much less difficult by beating Freiburg 5-0, erasing their first 1-0 defeat in Germany.