Angry Gattuso on the bench, unstoppable Aubameyang on the field. And rabid fans

Ukraine’s only representative Shakhtar’s Eurospring campaign will start with the Europa League 1/16 final match against Marseille. The Pitmen will play their first match on a conditional home field on February 15, 2024, and their return match away on February 22.

There is no longer any point in talking about the “more suitable option”, which, having identified the opponent, many of us automatically imagine Azerbaijan’s “Karabakh”. The opponent’s name has been determined and must be accepted. Also the fact that by definition there can be no weak opponents in the play-offs.

But in hot pursuit, we can conclude that things could have been worse if the Ukrainian champions had fallen to, for example, Roma, Freiburg or Sporting. So let’s agree on this: a normal party.

While Shakhtar qualified from the Champions League group stage to the Europa League play-offs, the Donetsk team took third place, and Marseille finished the Europa League group stage in second place. The French played in a foursome with Brighton, Ajax and AEK.

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Marseille or Olympique Marseille is one of the most titled clubs in France. The Blue-Whites (traditional team colors) are nine-time national champions and ten-time National Cup winners. Marseille is also the only French club to win the Champions League. But all (or almost all) of the achievements of the Provençals are in the distant past.

They won the Champions League in 1993. The last time we won League 1 was 2010 and the last time we won the National Cup was a long time ago, in 1989.

Marseille’s relative successes in the “new era” include becoming France’s vice-champions in 2020 and reaching the Europa League final two years ago.

After Marseille’s “golden age”, dating back to the nineties of the last century, the club experienced a long period of turbulence, woven from oblivion and local breakthroughs.

Now the French championship takes place under the undeniable signature of PSG, just as it was once under the dominance of Marseille. But if once “Saint-Germain” was the main irritant for the “blue and white”, then the current “Marseille” is not so for “Paris”. “Olympic” is now just “one of those things”.

Of course, the team still has tremendous authority in the domestic arena (according to former successes), but it is no longer seriously fighting for national “gold”: resources do not allow this.

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True, lately more and more talk is heard about Marseille’s ambition to return to its former greatness. And these conversations are connected, first of all, with the current president of the blue and whites, Pablo Longoria.

Last summer, Longoria wanted to invite Zinedine Zidane, the legendary former player of the French national team, to coach the team. However, Zizou set a condition: this will only happen if the club is bought by Arab sheikhs. “Marseille” was not satisfied with Zidane’s ultimatum and Spaniard Marcelinho was invited to the bridge vacated after Tudor’s departure.

The relationship with this mentor, the Ukrainian Marseille legionnaire Ruslan Malinovsky, did not work out (according to Ruslan himself) from the first days of joint work. And at the beginning of autumn, the midfielder of the Ukrainian national team left the Velodrome and moved to the Italian Genoa (as a free agent). So there will be no conflict between Malinovsky and his former team (in fact, Malina is an Orange-Black graduate).

However, Marcelinho did not stay in Marseille for long. After the fans’ serious dissatisfaction with the team’s results (they know firsthand their violent anger in France and across Europe), the club’s technical director and sports director (Javier Ribalta) were forced to resign.

Fans also targeted Longoria with their displeasure, but he managed to sit in his chair.

The climax of the Olympique fans’ rebellion was the attack on the Lyon bus before the 10th round match between Marseille and Lyon. As a result, Lyon’s head coach Grosso suffered a crushed head, many other club employees were injured and the match was never played.

And the new coach of Provencals was the well-known Rino Gattuso, who in the recent past became a famous football player of the Italian national team and became world champion as part of “Squadra Azzurra” in 2006. At Milan he won all possible trophies at team level. However, his managerial career is not going well so far.

Before the Olympics, whose contract was signed until the summer of next year, Gennaro was working in Valencia, but could not stay there for long due to lack of results: the parties separated “by mutual consent” at the end of last season.

Despite his brilliant charisma and authority among the players of any club he coaches, Gattuso cannot boast of real coaching talent and flexibility. Yes, he is a master at motivating not only with the carrot but also with the stick, but he is unlikely to do much more.

And Mehdi Benatia, who once played for Provencals, became Marseille’s new sporting director.

Currently, Marseille is in sixth place in the French Championship with 26 points after 16 weeks. Leader PSG has 37 points. It is clear that it is unlikely that Marseille will join the fight for gold this season. But fighting for third place is a very realistic task: the gap to Monaco in bronze level is only four points.

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The current Marseille main star is the famous former Dortmund, Arsenal and Barcelona forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Once upon a time, the Gabonese was one of the most distinctive strikers in world football. And not only because of extravagant hairstyles. But he never managed to reach the highest level. And he can only blame the cockroaches in his head for that.

But despite the age of 34. Aubameyang is in excellent form at Marseille: scoring regularly both in Ligue 1 and on the European stage.

Aubameyang scored 12 goals and 7 assists in 22 games played in the Olympics.

The Gabonese scored a hat-trick in the Europa League match against Ajax. Even though he scored two goals from the penalty spot and only one in the game, which one? Handsome, on a bike.

In addition to Aubameyang, goalkeeper Pau Lopez, defender Renan Lodi and midfielder Jordan Veretout may also be Marseille’s leaders.