Champions League: big winner of Sporting (4-1), OM revives

Marseille fans have missed a great opportunity to celebrate success in the Champions League, an extremely rare event for a decade.

Despite the closed door at the Vélodrome stadium due to the incidents that punctuated the previous Champions League meeting against Frankfurt 3 weeks ago, Marseille did indeed win this Tuesday against the Portuguese Sporting (4-1) during of the 3rd day of the C1.

After two defeats against Tottenham (2-0) and Frankfurt (0-1), this success completely revives Igor Tudor's men in the race for qualification for the round of 16.

They will meet their opponent in Lisbon in 8 days for the return.

However, the evening had started badly for the Marseillais.

Stuck in traffic jams in the Marseille city requiring a 20-minute delayed kick-off, the Portuguese started the match at 100 an hour.

After only 52 seconds of play, Trincao mystifies the Marseille defense by opening the scoring with a splendid strike in the top corner of Lopez.

We were then expecting another defeat for OM, which remained on an incredible series of… 16 defeats in their last 17 C1 matches!

“Everything is possible again for qualification”

Sporting goalkeeper Antonio Ardan then suddenly started to unpin in 10 minutes on three actions.

He first saw his clearance blocked by Alexis Sanchez in his own goal (1-1, 13th) then he missed a new clearance recovered by Guendouzi and cleverly finished with a header by Amine Harit (2-1, 16th), before being expelled for clearing the ball from his hands outside the area (23rd).

A numerical inferiority immediately sanctioned by a 3rd goal from the head signed Belardi (3-1, 28th).

Chancel Mbemba increases the addition at the end of the game.

“We had a complete match by putting on the intensity, appreciates captain Mattéo Guendouzi at the microphone of Canal Plus.

Everything is possible again for qualification.

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Even if OM took advantage of their opponent's big mistakes, it would be simplistic to reduce the victory of the Marseillais to the catastrophic score of the Sporting goalkeeper.

Despite the skepticism of many observers and catastrophic friendly matches, coach Igor Tudor, who arrived this summer from Verona, was able to put his foot down thanks to strong choices, such as leaving Dimitri Payet on the bench.

His 3-4-3 tactical scheme was well assimilated by his players.

And the arrivals of Éric Bailly, Chancel Mbemba, Jordan Veretout, Jonathan Clauss and Alexis Sanchez, author this Tuesday evening of his 5th goal in 9 games in all competitions, clearly bring a plus to this team.

Apart from the missed match at home against Frankfurt and the loss at the end of the match to Tottenham in numerical inferiority, OM made an excellent start to the season with in particular only 4 points left in L 1. The clasico on October 16 at the Parc des Princes looks very attractive.