Twenty days in hell.
It is not the new opus of an American blockbuster, but more prosaically of a summary, quite faithful, of the last weeks crossed by Marseille.
Flashback.
On January 13, OM went to Lens, the hope anchored to the body, to challenge Paris as part of the Champions Trophy.
Galvanized by its success at the Park four months earlier (1-0), the Marseille club dreams of bigger.
Without demerit, Mandanda and his partners are overtaken by the hard law of the ground and their insufficiencies (2-1).
At the end of the meeting, André Villas-Boas marks his difference with a very personal and somewhat disconcerting analysis.
“We can be the best team and lose games”.
Decidedly the aftermath of clasico is often disillusioning for OM.
In September, the coup in Paris, synonymous with a first victory since November 2011, had not been followed up, Saint-Etienne coming to shower the Olympians four days later at the Orange Vélodrome (2- 0).
After OM-Nîmes, Villas-Boas had already offered to leave
In the heart of winter, it is up to the Nîmes red lantern to flout, this time, the supposed hierarchy and to plunge its host into an abyss of perplexity on January 16 (1-2).
This failure at home hurts heads and instills doubt.
It gives rise to a change of tone at AVB.
“I want to say sorry to the supporters.
We cannot go from a good match against Paris to a miserable match like today.
"
Anger, bitterness… and a feeling of betrayal then inhabit the Lusitanian technician.
He will even propose his resignation to his management at the end of this snub.
“I made my place available to management.
This is an important clarification, ”he later confided.
President Jacques Henri Eyraud will even come out of his reserve to give a thunderous and unusual rant against his players on January 17!
Angry, the boss of OM notably points the finger at the mentality of the team.
"He told us that our match was pathetic, that we were spoiled rotten and that we were walked over by the last in Ligue 1, that we had no desire", even explained a player under cover of anonymity.
Payet-Thauvin, nothing is going well
A sword in the water.
On January 20, Lens landed at the Vélodrome and won the bet (1-0).
Not the type to shirk his responsibilities, Steve Mandanda, the world champion puts words on the evils.
“We shouted a lot, there was a lot of things said in the locker room, but not a big reaction.
There are, I think, a lot of things to change within the club ”.
Within the group, the atmosphere is vitiated.
The disenchantment between Payet and Thauvin comes to the surface.
"They will not go on vacation together", concedes, fatalist, AVB.
Concretely the first accuses his younger brother of playing a little too much for his mouth and the stats, when the second has other complaints against the Reunionese.
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He clearly did not appreciate that Payet went to negotiate with the president behind the backs of his partners to lower his salary.
“I took that as a betrayal,” even Thauvin blurted out in front of the group.
In June, Payet had agreed to lower his emoluments when signing an extension until 2024, with the written promise of a conversion to the club as sports director.
Hello the mood.
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Ulcerated by this crisis of results, the supporters then go there with unambiguous messages.
"You are disgusting", can one, in particular, read in a column of the Vélodrome the evening of the arrival of Lens.
Other banners, just as explicit, are also deployed around the enclosure against Eyraud.
Anger among OM fans is rising.
Contagious, it swells again after the defeat in Monaco on January 23 (3-1), the 3rd in a row in L 1 a first since 2015 and encourages the most extremist faction to enter into action.
The point of no return is then reached in the hours preceding the reception of Rennes, on January 30 (the match will be postponed).
We then witness an almost insurrectionary scene, since part of the 300 fans who came to express their discontent entered by force in the Marseille training center and committed numerous depredations.
A photo taken at the Robert-Louis-Dreyfus training center after the depredations committed by angry OM supporters last weekend./AFP/Nicolas Tucat
The day before, without having heard of these abuses, André Villas Boas, at the end of his contract in June, had made no secret of his designs.
“I think so, that's going to be the end.
I do not think that is possible (
Editor's note: an extension
).
The path to take, I think we all agree.
As I told you, the next year will be year zero for the club.
It's going to be total cleanup.
“Visibly in a hurry to turn the page, the Portuguese, reconverted into master of the clocks, announced on Tuesday that he had presented his resignation to his management, which accepted it.
It remains to know the position of owner Frank McCourt.
In this deleterious context on all floors, the trip to Lens, this Wednesday, then especially the arrival of PSG, on February 7, hardly participate in bringing a little serenity in the ranks more and more dispersed.
In Marseille, these days we are playing a remake of “courage flee”.
VIDEO. OM: Villas-Boas announces that he has tendered his resignation