WIf he calculates his chances of getting one of the top places in the football quiz, he should know the answer to the following question: Which team was the first to win the Champions League? Correct: Olympique Marseille 1993 in Munich.
The two world champions and later coaches Didier Deschamps and Rudi Völler played together for the French club, which had just won the championship for the fifth time in a row. A certain Fabien Barthez guarded the goal. Also in the ranks of the favored AC Milan were well-known names like Frank Rijkaard, Paolo Maldini and Marco van Basten. Nevertheless, the Italians lost 0:1 in a moderately exciting final for long stretches.
Doping allegations against Bernard Tapie
These were the most successful years of the traditional club from the Côte d’Azur, which fell apart in the months that followed because of a bribery scandal: stripping away of the championship title, forced relegation and exclusion from European club competitions. The legitimacy of the 1993 Champions League win has also been questioned since former midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie made serious allegations in an interview with L’Équipe in 2006:
The powerful club president Bernard Tapie, known for his extravagant lifestyle and costly transfer policy, is said to have incited his players to doping before the start of the final. This can no longer be proven today. Only Völler got off positively in the story, who is said to have not only resisted the alleged rule violation, but also protested violently against it. He himself stated that he absolutely could not remember the hours before his only Champions League triumph.
Things are much rosier now: Olympique Marseille, who despite a ten-year dry spell without a club title, are still at the top of the all-time Ligue 1 table, have made a brilliant start to the season. Six wins from seven games means second place in the league, tied on points with the industry leader from Paris. At the weekend, Igor Tudor’s team, who arrived from Verona before the season, turned the top game against Lille with goals from Gigot and Sánchez.
The Chilean record goalscorer is the most prolific forward in his new employers’ ranks with four goals and is available again after a suspension. He will most likely be preferred to Colombian Luis Suárez. Mattéo Guendouzi is in midfield, the 23-year-old was signed on loan from Arsenal FC. In the back three in front of goalkeeper Pau López, Sead Kolašinac could replace the suspended Mbemba alongside Gigot and Bailly.
upheaval in summer
Whether Amine Harit, the second player with a Schalke past, will be in the starting XI against Frankfurt is an open question. The Moroccan, whose second engagement on the Mediterranean coast was on the brink until shortly before the transfer ended, missed the great chance of a 1-0 win against Tottenham after he was substituted on. He was able to promote himself in his debut against Lille.
The current team doesn’t have much in common with the squad that lost 2-1 to Frankfurt at the start of the 2018/2019 Europa League season in Marseille almost exactly four years ago: there is just one player from the starting XI from back then today still under contract. The shift has been gradual, most visible this summer. At the end of a brief transfer period, Pablo Longoria, who at 36 was the youngest president of any French top-flight club, and Marseille were down €58m on transfers.
Unlike Frankfurt, Marseille did not “learn the lesson”, as Kevin Trapp put it, in the first preliminary round match against Tottenham Hotspur. However, the yield of points is identical for both. If OM defender Mbemba hadn’t lost the running duel against Heung-min Son shortly after the restart when the score was 0:0 (final score 0:2) and then only knew how to help himself with an emergency brake, a different outcome would have been conceivable.
When the teams step onto the pitch at the Stade Vélodrome on Tuesday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League and on DAZN), the home fans should try to live up to their reputation as the most frenetic supporters in the whole country. Those responsible look with concern at their fan curve: After the riots in the semi-finals of the Conference League against Rotterdam and most recently against Tottenham, the supporters are threatened with a travel ban. Former coach Deschamps once called the stadium a “very special place”: “Marseille marks everyone who has been here forever.”
