Olympique de Marseille completed its very active recruitment (arrivals of Lirola and Milik, in addition to the young Tongya) on Monday evening by registering the loan with option to buy the versatile Celtic Glasgow midfielder Olivier Ntcham.
A recruitment that could cringe on the side of the Marseille supporters just days after the incidents at the Robert Louis-Dreyfus training center.
While relations between fans and management have continued to grow strained in recent weeks, OM has indeed secured the services of a 24-year-old player whose dream was to one day evolve. at Paris SG.
Born in Longjumeau (Essonne), Ntcham, who made his ranges in the Ile de France region (Chennevrières FC, US Ormesson, VGA Saint-Maur then Paris FC) before taking the direction of Normandy then England , in Manchester City, the springboard of his professional career, had confided his attachment to the capital club in September 2017.
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“I was a supporter of this team when I was little.
It is very close to being a dream for me and my family ”
At the time, Celtic Glasgow for which he played, was preparing to face Paris SG in the Champions League.
A meeting that Ntcham had considered to be the greatest match of his career, on a sporting but also emotional level.
“I was a supporter of this team when I was little.
It's very close to being a dream for me and my family, ”said the international Espoirs, admiringly, at a press conference.
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In Marseille, we will therefore closely follow the performance of the winter recruit who is not, however, the first player to have put his bags down with the two great rivals of French football.
The Paris SG-Marseille axis, if it has dried up in recent years, has also been at full speed for a long time, without this systematically causing problems for players in their relationship with supporters (Gabriel Heinze, Modeste Mbami, Peguy Luyindula, Lorik Cana, Laurent Fournier, Bernard Pardo, Bruno Germain, George Weah, Daniel Bravo, Alain Roche or Jérôme Leroy to name a few).
Olivier Ntcham has been playing at Celtic Glasgow since 2017.
But some experiences had turned out badly, for Fabrice Fiorèse in particular, whose career under the Parisian colors (between 2002 and 2004) had never passed in the eyes of the Marseille supporters.
“I had a monstrous handicap, it is that the Marseille fans thought that I was originally from Paris.
The other handicap that I had is that a few months before, I had scored at the last minute (1-0), one evening when sincerely, we should have taken five.
(...) And then, I took more than two months to score a goal, I had taken Drogba's number 11… All that made it unlivable, ”explained in
L'Equipe
the striker assuring that this transfer to the Marseille city had "shot" his career.
Fiorèse, who had stayed at OM for three years (2004-2007) had played only 19 matches and scored two small goals in the south of France.
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