« I don't think it changes anything. We saw in the first fifteen minutes that we were good, we made them run, we created chances. » Even the polite Warren Zaire-Emery was in the mood to tackle the Marseillais at the end of a Classic which ended short (0-3). It's difficult to prove the titi wrong, because if Amine Harit's red card in the twentieth minute made the Phocaeans mad with rage, they must not forget that the match already seemed to be decided from the first moments. The Parisians did not let up on the accelerator pedal, scattering their rival like a puzzle and making the stands of a great evening Vélodrome sparse in a very short time. As is often the case during these special evenings, only the OM supporters were ready to face adversity, but the apathetic performance of their core team, trailing by three goals before the break, forced them to lay down their arms.
Classic shit
The very definition of a « classic » allows us to understand that French football fans should now be accustomed to these unbalanced encounters between those who are presented as the country's biggest rivals. Every time, or almost, a refrain sets in: a media frenzy takes over in the days preceding the match, the Marseillais feel, this time, ready to knock the unsinkable PSG off its pedestal – after all, Højbjerg, Rabiot and Greenwood are Champions League level, right? – and then, unfortunately, sporting reality takes over and PSG wins 20 of the last 25 matches in Ligue 1, conceding only one defeat and fourteen small goals. The corrections continue and the memories of great Olympian matches begin to become distant.
The day after another spanking without any outburst or gesture of humor, it must be admitted that the Classic no longer has anything of a classic. Since the takeover of the capital club, the dice seem loaded as the difference in level is abysmal, and it is not the enthusiasm for each Marseille recruit that will reverse the balance. Beyond the field, the lack of players from Marseille does not allow us to connect with the historic rivalry, when those born in the Paris region are more experienced in international games than in banal Sunday evening matches. Even the tifo representing Fabrizio Ravanelli standing up to Pierre Ducrocq in 1997 – a time when Marseille players could legitimately look the Parisians straight in the eye – was not enough to rekindle the flame.
Find a rival of your size
The day before, The Classicthe real one, between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, had kept all its promises, despite the even greater difference on the scoreboard (0-4). Even if the confrontation between the two behemoths of the Spanish championship had lost its splendor in recent years due to the Catalan's poor form, the poster remains one of the most exciting, season after season. In Germany, Dortmund is trying to hold its own against Bayern Munich, but has just spent ten years eating its black bread by breaking its teeth on the Bavarian giant. On the contraryacross the Channel, the rivalry between Manchester City and Arsenal, following the City-Liverpool clash at the end of the 2010s, was recently born thanks to the sporting parameter, leaving the historic derbies on the sidelines.
To relearn how to exist in the face of adversity, Olympique de Marseille must therefore change its approach and find an opponent of its size. « The more enemies there are, the more beautiful the victory. »wrote the author Hippolyte Bis and, that’s good, the Phocaeans have no shortage of them. There is indeed this skirmish with the Girondins de Bordeaux which has lasted since the last century, but here is the club in the fourth division and far from being able to compete against the Olympians. Same level for the Varois of SC Toulon. To stay in the South, OGC Nice has a similar level, but recent confrontations are struggling to generate real animosity. Ditto for the fights against AS Monaco, the two clubs obviously having no interest in playing up any rivalry. All that remains is Olympique Lyonnais, this scratchy hair which symbolizes what OM hates and which often offers thrilling encounters. A month ago, Roberto De Zerbi praised « the balls » of his team against Alexandre Lacazette's gang by overturning a poorly started encounter with a numerical inferiority from the fifth minute. This is precisely a large part of what he missed against PSG.
PSG notes
