“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Olympique de Marseille have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nikos Christogeorgos is living that version at Olympique de Marseille, and it tends to show in the first month.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Emerson and Olympique de Marseille agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amine Gouiri is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Igor Paixão was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Olympique de Marseille are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Olympique de Marseille will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Rémi Benoit, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutEmerson dropped after a run of poor form
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Olympique de Marseille, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ziyad Baha has left for USL Dunkerque in a $520.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Amine Gouiri falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Angel Gomes was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nobody at Olympique de Marseille will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Olympique de Marseille would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Dmytro Riznyk was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Olympique de Marseille are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Olympique de Marseille know now that the thought has arrived.
Marked 8.22. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Olympique de Marseille.
AJ Auxerre held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Olympique de Marseille answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Dmytro Riznyk and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Olympique de Marseille know it.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Benjamin Pavard was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Rémi Benoit left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Olympique de Marseille will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Olympique de Marseille told Joseph Kalulu something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Position 2 and 25 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A brace, and Amine Gouiri takes the afternoon — 8.82
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Amine Gouiri provided it, and the 8.82 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Olympique de Marseille will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
$20.7M on the table at Napoli. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Yann Karamoh is living that version at Olympique de Marseille, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Olympique de Marseille heard it as anything else.
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Emerson and Olympique de Marseille agree another 2 years.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Olympique de Marseille can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jeffrey de Lange has his answer from Olympique de Marseille; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Igor Paixão trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Still no offer on the table, and Emerson’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Yann Karamoh