Olympique de Marseille, a descendant of the Marseille football club founded two years earlier, was founded on August 31, 1899.
OM has played at the Stade Velodrome since 1937, the place where former Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer scored against Tunisia on a balmy afternoon in France ’98.
OM has nine Ligue 1 titles to its name, won the Coupe de France ten times and both the Coupe de la Ligue and the Trophee des Champions three times. OM also has one UEFA Champions League title, being the only French team to win the European Cup until Paris St Germain won last season’s competition. More about that ‘success’ later……
French football turned professional in 1932, so despite some previous success, OM’s first Ligue 1 victory did not officially come until the 1937 season, when they beat Sochaux to the title on goal difference.
Although OM won the coupe de France in 1938 and again in 1942, before securing another Ligue 1 title in 1948, the club struggled in the 1950s and were relegated for the first time in 1959.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, OM dominated French football under the presidency of Marcel Leclerc. After returning to the First Division in 1966, they won the Coupe de France in 1969 and then Ligue 1 in 1971 before securing the league and cup double the following season. Being champions of France meant competing in the European Cup, but OM were knocked out by the team that won the competition in 1972, Johan Cruyff’s Ajax, before succumbing to defeated finalists Juventus in 1973. However, this brief period of success would not last long. Leclerc was forced to leave the club after a dispute with Ligue 1 over his fielding more than the regular number of foreign players.
In April 1986, businessman turned politician Bernard Tapie became club president and went on to put together the greatest football team seen in France to date, with high-profile signings such as Alain Giresse, Jean-Pierre Papin, Jean Tigana, Didier Deschamps, Basile Boli, Marcel Desailly and Fabien Barthez. It was during this period that former Newcastle United player Chris Waddle signed for OM, where he made 107 appearances in three eventful seasons between 1989 and 1992.
With Waddle in the team, OM won three league titles (they actually won four in a row after being crowned champions the season before Waddle’s arrival). The club also reached the European Cup final for the first time in 1991, losing to Red Star Belgrade on penalties.
After Waddle returned to England to ply his trade at Hillsborough with Sheffield Wednesday, OM avenged that defeat to the Yugoslavs by winning the new Champions League format in 1993. After beating Glasgow Rangers in the group stage, the club qualified for the final and Basile Boli scored the only goal of a thrilling match against AC Milan at the Munich Olympic Stadium.
However, OM’s doubles in Ligue 1 and the European Cup came at significant costs, as the club became embroiled in financial irregularities and a match-fixing scandal, and suffered forced relegation to the second division. This scandal, called l’affaire VA-OM, involved two Valenciennes players who accepted bribes to underperform and effectively forfeit their match against OM ahead of the final against Milan. The match against Valenciennes was won 1-0 by OM and it helped them secure another Ligue 1 title.
Tapie was complicit and asked one of his players to act as a conduit to bribe three Valenciennes players, one of whom declined the invitation and later brought the matter to the attention of a local magistrate. OM were subsequently stripped of their Ligue 1 title and the right to defend the Champions League (and to participate in the 1993 European Super Cup and the 1993 Intercontinental Cup).
Although OM returned to the top level in 1996, the closest they came to another trophy was when they reached the UEFA Cup final in 2004, but lost to newly crowned Spanish champions Valencia. Newcastle United fans will remember Didier Drogba breaking our hearts in the second leg of the semi-final. After scoring a clean sheet at SJP, and with the second leg on the Cote d’Azur nicely set up, it was a case of what could have been: injuries and a poor performance saw OM through to the final, with Drogba scoring in the 18th and 82nd minutes in what was the only competitive match between the two sides until Tuesday evening.
A few years later, with Didier Deschamps at the helm, OM won their last major awards. In 2010 they won the Coupe de la Ligue final by beating Bordeaux 3-1 at the Stade de France, their first major title since their tainted Champions League victory 17 years earlier. Two months later, OM won their first league championship in 18 years and although they won the Coupe de la Ligues treble in 2011 and 2102 by retaining the trophy, that was OM’s most recent success, with the past decade and a bit representing another barren period for the club.
OM is currently managed by former Brighton manager Roberto de Zerbi, who during his time at Amex saw his side win, lose and draw against Newcastle United, that solitary defeat coming on a famous night in May 2023 when Callum Wilson and Bruno Guimaraes scored late on at the Gallowgate End in a match that NUFC won 4-1 and all but qualified for the Champions League.
On Friday night, OM beat Nice 5-1 away from home to temporarily put them at the top of Ligue 1, and with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mason Greenwood both on the scoresheet, they have some quality at the top. In Benjamin Pavard, a 55-time capper for the French national team and currently on loan from Inter Milan, OM have a quality centre-back linked to Argentine Leonardo Balerdi, while left-back Emerson is another familiar face having played in the Premier League for both West Ham and Chelsea.
Although OM have lost three of their Champions League games this season, away to Real Madrid and Sporting Lisbon and at home to Atalanta, make no mistake: they have been tough games.
I think this will be a tough test for Eddie Howe and the boys and the result will play a big role in determining the rest of our Champions League group campaign. But NUFC have just got the upper hand over Manchester City and they are no Nice. That said, I’m going to sit on the fence and suggest we come away from the Stade Velodrome with a point. If we do that, I think that means success.
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