The Olympique de Marseille Sentinel
Market14 Jul 2031
Nicolò Tresoldi moves on
OGC Nice pay $12.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market14 Jul 2031
Terms done: Ali Abdi is going
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and US Creteil waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Olympique de Marseille is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market14 Jul 2031
Not going: Jeffrey de Lange stays at Olympique de Marseille
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Bolton Wanderers had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Market14 Jul 2031
Only the photograph left for Andrea Colpani
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Andrea Colpani will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Olympique de Marseille the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Nicolò Zaniolo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olympique de Marseille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom14 Jul 2031
Alessio Castellini has agreed to leave Olympique de Marseille for nothing
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Words at Olympique de Marseille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ayyoub Bouaddi 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.
Squad14 Jul 2031
András Németh has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Marc Benoit out for 49 days
The medical room confirms 49 days on the sidelines for Marc Benoit, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
In brief
- The dugout Nicolò Zaniolo gets picked when it counts
- The dugout No hiding place for Kornel Miściur
- The dugout Denis Zakaria knocks on the manager's door