OM: Mercato – Medhi Benatia, a sports director with a promising future
For several months, Medhi Benatia has played a significant role in Marseille (OM). Much more than a simple advisor to President Pablo Longoria, the former footballer has become the key contact for the club’s coach, Roberto De Zerbi. Their collaboration and common vision of football are starting to bear fruit. These shared values have created a synergy, bringing new dynamism to the club.
By accepting the role of sports director, which should soon be confirmed, Medhi Benatia is entrusted with strategic responsibilities. Its objective is to harmonize OM’s sports policy, by aligning training results with the objectives of the first team. This reform, initiated with the departure of Marco Otero and the arrival of Lassad Hasni, marks a significant step towards the structuring of the Marseille club.
Roberto De Zerbi is a passionate and impulsive coach in the best sense of the word. Since his arrival at OM, he has benefited from the support of Medhi Benatia, who is determined to help the club position itself at the top of Ligue 1. Their exchanges go beyond the professional field, the two men sharing a real camaraderie. Regularly, they converse in Italian to discuss strategies, whether it is analyzing matches or motivating players.
This fluid collaboration between De Zerbi and Benatia is a considerable asset for the management of OM’s transfer affairs. Their good understanding will make it easier to target the right players the club needs to bounce back. Together, Roberto De Zerbi and Medhi Benatia identify the profiles that best align with OM’s style of play. Once the proposals are finalized, Pablo Longoria, president of Olympique de Marseille, will make the final decisions.
-With the numerous international responsibilities of Pablo Longoria, recently in Ivory Coast at the invitation of the Ivorian Ministry of Tourism, he delegates more and more operations to Medhi Benatia. The latter is already a pillar in the daily management of the club. Although he recently admitted that the task was “more complex than he had imagined”, Benatia is fully committed to the development of Olympique de Marseille.
His upcoming contract, aligned with the mandate of Roberto De Zerbi, will symbolize the trust placed in him by Frank McCourt and Pablo Longoria, particularly with regard to OM transactions. Benatia already embodies this new era in which OM wishes to rely on strong visionary leaders to achieve its sporting ambitions.
With Medhi Benatia as sporting director of OM and Roberto De Zerbi on the bench of this Marseille club, Pablo Longoria could have found the stability necessary to build a stable and lasting project. The complementarity between the two men could be the key to the success of the club in the years to come.
Marseille supporters are impatiently awaiting the official confirmation of this appointment, because they already know that Medhi Benatia and the management of OM share a common ambition: to elevate the club to the top of European football.
