Despite a season that ended in eighth place in Ligue 1 and was marked by numerous coaching changes, Olympique de Marseille remains attractive. Indeed, president Pablo Longoria has just made one of the very nice moves of this transfer window by attracting the Italian Roberto De Zerbi, highly rated in Europe, to the bench.
The Olympian club made its arrival official this Saturday June 29 on its social networks. De Zerbi has just finished his adventure with Brighton, a club he led to sixth place in the Premier League in 2023 before taking the club to the round of 16 of the Europa League last season for the Seagulls’ first appearance at a European Cup.
Fonseca and Conceiçao first tracked
A fashionable coach, with very established playing principles and a fan of offensive and constructed football, the Italian has on paper a lot of assets to convince Marseille supporters, a bit like Marcelo Bielsa, one of his mentors, who excited the Vélodrome a few years ago. Coveted, the native of Brescia, who passed through Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk, imagined himself more at Bayern Munich, Liverpool or Manchester United but the most beautiful European benches finally found a buyer.
An inaccessible profile on paper that pushed the Olympian leaders to first look at other technicians starting with Paulo Fonseca. The Lille coach finally joined AC Milan which pushed OM to turn to Sergio Conceiçao, long a favorite but whose procrastination finally cost the FC Porto coach his job.
Ultimately, it is a superb move achieved by Marseille and which could restore momentum after the fiasco of last season. Some departing players could also review their role like Jonathan Clauss. “It can weigh in the balance, obviously, when you know that a coach arrives with playing principles such as his, it can be pleasant to play under his orders”declared the right-back during a press conference with the Blues.
