The Olympique de Marseille bench has a new leader. The Marseille club in fact formalized on Saturday evening the arrival for three seasons of Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi.
“I felt a very strong desire to join this club. The history and prestige surrounding OM, the passion and fervour of its supporters, the seriousness and enthusiasm shown to me” by the management, listed De Zerbi. “I can’t wait to sit on the bench at the Orange Vélodrome, this time as OM coach, and help the club regain the rank that Marseille deserves,” he added.
Longoria sees it as the beginning of a “new sporting cycle”
For the American owner of OM, Frank McCourt “his arrival marks the start of an ambitious new chapter and constitutes an essential element of our strategy for the future success” of the club. De Zerbi is “a talented and renowned coach at European level”, welcomed President Pablo Longoria for his part, for whom this arrival marks the start of a “new sporting cycle”.
Despite a season ending in a sad eighth place and marked by multiple changes of coaches, Pablo Longoria and his team pulled off a nice coup by attracting this very popular coach on the market. At the end of last season, OM said thank you to Jean-Louis Gasset, who came to save the furniture at the end of an exercise during which everything went wrong, and began looking for a new coach , who would agree to manage a private European Cup club for the first time since the 2019-2020 season.
An asset for the OM transfer window
The Brescia native, who notably played for Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk, imagined himself more at Bayern Munich, Liverpool or Manchester United. But the best European benches found takers and the OM option remained alive, thanks also to Brighton’s visit to Marseille last autumn for a Europa League match. De Zerbi had loved the atmosphere at the Vélodrome.
The arrival of a coach of this calibre is also a plus for the transfer window and some Marseille players who were thinking of leaving might think twice.
