Before Marseille – Strasbourg | OM still cannot integrate its young people

He was to be the new darling, the next Samir Nasri, proof that OM has reconnected with its training center. Instead, Enzo Sternal, since it is him we are talking about, was secretly exfiltrated to Anderlecht this week. Last summer, however, the Marseille club made its contract extension a real issue.

A few months earlier, the young Marseillais had won the famous Gambardella Cup – a first since 1979 – and enhanced the reputation of a generation that was said, here and there, to be particularly talented. Goalkeeper Aboubaka Dosso, midfielders Darryl Bakola and Yanis Sellami, striker Keyliane Abdallah… all these names had suddenly become part of the conversations of the most assiduous OM followers.

And since then? Nothing left, or almost. While the Marseille management has continued, for years, to reaffirm its desire to integrate young people from its training into its economic environment, their playing time in the first team remains limited. Bakola, Sternal, Koum, Abdallah, who all made a few appearances this season, had to be content with small parts of the match.

“I only focus on the field and if the field gives me answers, I act accordingly.justified De Zerbi, at a press conference, when discussing the Sternal case. I don’t give gifts to players. If he didn’t play, it’s because he didn’t deserve to. […] Players must have patience and wait their turn, progressing. I am one of the coaches in Europe who gets young people playing more. The goal is results. If a young person has to play in place of Rabiot, he will play. It’s clear to everyone.”

But this failure is also that of OM. As soon as he took power, Pablo Longoria expressed his wish to re-anchor the club to his region. Despite this, the Marseille entity also suffered from the instability of the club and its organizational chart. Marco Otero, one of the pillars of the training center chosen by the Spanish leader, was finally removed from his position as director of the center last November.

And other tensions pitted Ali Zarrak, a close friend of Benatia, against Jean-Pierre Papin, coach of the reserve. In short, OM is still not capable of offering the serene, calm and peaceful environment necessary for its young people, even if a good part of them are not helped, either, by entourages who are often too greedy.

In Marseille, impatience still reigns, from the tank to the first team. The last transfer windows had created instability, and the recent arrivals of players of international stature (Rabiot, Höjbjerg, Greenwood) have necessarily reduced the opportunities, at the heart of a fairly slow season in the absence of the Coupe de France. Europe.