In French club football there are no constant values, such as Milan and Juventus in Italy or Real Madrid with other neighbors, the Spaniards. There are no great clubs, no great confrontations. But each era has its own heroes. In the 21st century, the classic matches of the French championship were the meetings of Lyon with its closest pursuers, candidates for the overthrow of the king of club football. The king is recognized and reigning by right, but has not yet received the title of "great."
In the 2006-2007 season, the candidate for the throne was Marseille, the previous crowned club that ruled in the late 1980s and early 1990s, on the eve of the time of troubles. The kingdom of the Provencal club ended sadly: having won the only French Champions Cup in May 1993, the Olympic de Marseilles collapsed into the abyss a month later, convicted of unfair play. The formal reason for the impeachment was an open conspiracy with the Valenciennes club - the so-called OM-Wa case, after which both teams lost almost everything that they had at that time (for example, Marseille had the French title of the season 1992/1993). To recover, Valenciennes took 13 years - a little less than a prisoner of If castle, distinguishable from the old Marseilles port. In the current championship, the team from the east of France for the first time after the OM-Va case returned to the elite league. In turn, the once great “Olympic de Marseille” remains in crisis to this day. Marseille spent the vague decade during which the champion was replaced annually, in the second and even eighth roles, and only in the last two or three seasons he finally made him speak of himself as a real force. Particularly sharp were the expectations of the return of the fame of “Marseille” this fall, when the team retained its last year’s composition, including having managed to keep the main hope of French football, 23-year-old attacking midfielder Frank Ribery. Expectations were supported by starting results. Before the tenth round, at the equator of the first round of the championship, Marseille settled on the second line in the table, losing only five points to the one ready to once again confirm its right to hegemony to Lyon. At this moment, the five-time champion of France, His Majesty Olympic Lionne (it is funny that only these two teams in France have a middle name “Olympian”), granted an inspection visit to Marseille.
There is an opinion that the main French port has long turned into a Negro-Arab city, that you will hear “salaam alaikum” on the streets of Marseilles more often than “bonjour”. It seems to me that this is a fallacy.
Firstly, one of the largest Mediterranean ports has become multi-lingual and multilingual a very long time ago. If not 2600 years ago, when the first settlement appeared on the banks of a beautiful long and deep bay, then certainly at the beginning of a new era, when the city entered the era of prosperity with the advent of the Romans.
Secondly, the French live here as if nothing had happened and occupy far worse positions. If near the old port, as in the old days, human diversity reigns, then in a quiet green neighborhood at the foot of a hill stretching to the sky, like a finger with diamond decoration, the main attraction of Marseille - the Basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde, lives a respectable, purely French (maybe more French than anywhere else in the center of Paris) public. Rising for tourist purposes to an eclectic temple crowned with a golden statue, you can relax in a pretty park with waterfalls popping up from lush greenery and on the playground among several dozen children you will not notice a single with dark skin. And to leave open for ourselves the question of who is driving someone out of living space.
Yes, and thirdly, if suddenly it still seems to someone that France is experiencing a growing foreign presence every year, then Marcel in this sense is unlikely to be a leader. Take a walk through the streets of the same Lyon - a city in the interior of the country, almost surrounded by mountains and absorbing burgher habits for centuries. Or find out the name of the most promising young pupils of the two “Olympics”. No, you don’t have to rummage through the directories, I’ll tell you right now: in Marseille - Samir Nasri, in Lyon - Karim Benzema. The conditional duel of two 19-year-old juniors can be considered a projection of the whole essence of Sunday’s confrontation at the Velodrom stadium.
Samir Nasri now forms the basis of the midfield of Marseille along with Frank Ribery. Nasri is far from the charisma of his counterpart, generally still far from the superprofessional level, as well as, perhaps, the entire Provencal team.
Lyon is a completely different matter. Karim Benzema here is actually a junior, but a junior growing by leaps and bounds due to the presence of extra-class players in the team. In a match with Marcel, Benzema appeared on the field on the principle that “there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped”: he replaced the injured in the middle of the first half injury of Brazilian center forward Fred. However, unlike Nasri, who, together with his partners, tried in vain to destroy the ideally built game of the champion of France, Benzema quickly moved from reservists to heroes. It was he who, shortly after the break, made the score 2-0, closing an excellent canopy into the penalty area from the flank, after which Marcel’s hopes not only for success, but in general for at least some positive emotions became illusive, like the memories of Count Monte Cristo .
Velodrome, the most faithful French football stadium, should not have been left without compensation. And in the 75th minute of the long-awaited match, he received it, not in full, not by all accounts, but only in consolation, but he received it. Ribery, like an autumn wind from the sea, whirled along the Lyon penalty line, found a gap in the opponent’s tightly soiled defense wall and blew it with an accurate goal pass to Habib Bamogo, who forced the captain of the Lyon goalkeeper Remy Vercutra to capitulate for the first and last time .
The crowded Velodrome boiled instantly - like a kettle forgotten on fire. The intrigue came to life, raised its head for an instant, like a freshly caught fish laid out from a cage on a seller’s tray. But after all, she was alone on a tray only in order to soon migrate to the buyer’s wallet, from where, as you know, there are only two roads: to the soup (oh, what delicious bouillabaisse is made in Marseille!) Or to the frying pan.
“Lyon” completed an inspection to visit a dubious applicant for the kingdom with annihilating maxims of two counterattacks, won with a score of 4: 1, creating a gap in the width of the Marseille Bay in the table. And shredded and pickled, like Provencal cabbage, Marseille will now have to take up the life of a participant in the struggle for second place, which, after his defeat and success in the 10th round, Nancy and Toulouse threatens to inflame with special force. The Lyons, of course, can condescendingly convince the rest of France that the intrigue of the entire championship still lurks in the depths inaccessible to fishing nets. The captain of Lyon Juninho, who, by the way, opened the score on Velodrom with a free kick from the penalty area, and in the second half, royally threw his own goal from the game, said, for example, that even eight points were so early stages of the season do not allow you to feel safe. As for the early stage, it's true. Only if you look at the situation with the frightened fish eyes of Lyon's competitors, you get a picture that chills even the cold blood of the inhabitants of the depths: only 10 rounds behind, and the champion has already come off by 10 points.
Tickets for the match Marseille - Lyon were sold three weeks before the game. Among the guests of honor were listed and born in Marseilles, but never played for Olympic, Zinedine Zidane, and Basil Boli (the man who scored the winning goal in the final of the 1993 Champions Cup), and other football idols of Provence, and I admit, few familiar to me, but well known to French journalists, participants in the launch of the Mediterranean music and art festival on the eve, and presidents with coaches of most French clubs. By the way, I was lucky to see Marco Materazzi and Zinedine Zidane during the week, it’s only a pity that I’m apart.
Evenings at the Velodrome were waiting almost like a football event of the year. Probably, in part, he managed to meet expectations. One way or another, the match became bright, like the embroidered holiday clothes of the inhabitants of the Arab quarters of Marseille. The coach of Bordeaux, last year's Lyon rival, 15 points behind the champion in the end, Brazilian Ricardo Gomez told me after the game that he enjoyed the performance, for which, in fact, he came to Velodrom. “We have already met in the first round with both Lyon and Marseille,” Ricardo said. - So I did not think at all about studying, looking at rivals. I just wanted to enjoy the sight. And it succeeded. " And the fact that only one royal troupe now gives the highest-quality performances in France is nothing to be done about this.
In French club football, greatness is a variable thing. It requires daily, weekly and annual confirmation and proof. However, it must be admitted that Lyon presents this evidence with murderous constancy.
ALEXANDER SHMURNOV / MARSEILLE