“He behaved badly with me”… When Thauvin explains why he got confused with Payet

It’s a famous enmity, for those who tried so hard to follow the sporting chronicle of OM in the 2010s. Florian Thauvin and Dimitri Payet could not ignore each other, to the point of openly snubbing each other on the field, and we never really knew why.

Now a Udinese player, the 2018 world champion, lifted the veil on YouTuber Zack Nani’s show on Thursday, and he didn’t go there with the back of the spoon. “Should I tell the truth? He behaved badly towards me. When I arrived at OM (in 2013), there was first a problem between Payet and Valbuena, who were not passing each other. The problem shifted to me and at one point they were no longer making passes to me. There was a big disturbance in the locker room and a summons from Anigo. Payet and Valbuena said nothing. I said to myself: ”Death for death, I don’t care, I’m talking”. I said: ”I respect them, but if they don’t pass me, I don’t pass them”. The problem starts from there. Then there is a match where Payet can shift me two or three times and he doesn’t do it. I get angry and insult him. It’s a big mistake.”

“He stabbed me in the back”

The error in question definitively breaks the footballing relationship between the two offensive stars of OM, who left the club at almost the same time, for Newcastle and West Ham. But they both find themselves at the Commanderie in 2017. Things go better at first: “We have a clean slate with Dimitri. It went really well for two years. Then the results start to go bad. One day, we were summoned by Villas-Boas. For me there is no problem. Dimitri tells me there is nothing. […] We continued and some time later there was a problem at the club with Dimitri. […] One day at training Payet explained himself and said in front of everyone: ”Flo if you have a problem, tell me because you play for yourself. You have to respect the team. He stabbed me in the back. I told him, ‘I’m glad to hear you had a problem with me because I didn’t know. I am the club’s top scorer and best passer. So no, I don’t just play for my face”. We stopped talking to each other.”

Since then, have the two men had time to smoke the peace pipe? Florian Thauvin explains that they crossed paths during the Monaco GP recently and that Payet made the first move: “He came to shake my hand himself. We all make mistakes. I don’t care. We know that Dimitri and I won’t go out to eat together every day, but we have to know how to forgive. » The Marseille supporters would undoubtedly have preferred such a height of view at the time when the two maggots were defending their colors.