Olympique Marseille were bad under Spanish coach Marcelino (only two victories in seven games and one elimination from the Champions League), they were bad under Gennaro Gattuso (24 games, seven defeats and eight draws) and when the Italian resigned, unable to motivate the team came in the Ivory Coast flop Jean-Louis Gasset as an interim manager and voila – the team has won four games in a row. The last one was the most impressive, a 4-0 win against Villarreal-lead Marcelino. Not only did they play well, but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang finally started to show his real qualities and scored a brace, second of which was a beautiful lob over former Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern and AC Milan keeper Pepe Reina. UEL: Marseille sink the ‘Yellow Submarine’ with four goalsThere were questions after the game if he scored a goal incidentally, trying to cross the ball, but the Gabon striker denied that. “The first thing I see is Pepe Reina advanced, so I tell myself that I’ll try the lob. I have success but that’s how it is, we take it. It’s voluntary, totally, 100%. You can see that Ismaïla Sarr cuts at the near post and if I had wanted to put him, I would have centered at the first but the first thing I saw was Pepe Reina advanced, so I said to myself, I’ll try it. Magnificent! There is success in the gesture but it’s intentional. It feels good to win in style. It’s interesting, we stay focused on what we’re doing and that’s a good thing. We feel really good after everything we’ve been through psychologically since the start of season, we stick together, we move forward together and we continue” he said to RMC Sport. Man of the moment 🔥Aubameyang wins #UEL Goal of the Week with this audacious chip 🥵🤌@Heineken || #UELGOTW pic.twitter.com/kYIIgsVT2L— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) March 8, 2024 On the other side was coach Marcelino, who was not only protected by the police and booed by the sellout stadium, but was also humiliated with a 4-0 defeat, which means his team is all but eliminated. “The result remains the worst this evening. Much more than the whistles that were addressed to me. It’s a very hard blow, of course. We didn’t expect this kind of performance nor this result. From now on, qualifying is very difficult. We will have to play the return with as much energy and hope as possible. We were not up to par, it’s my fault. I didn’t make the right decisions and I am the only one responsible. The first two goals hurt us and we had difficulty recovering from them. But I am the only one to blame, I didn’t make the right decisions neither before nor during the match” said the honest Spaniard.
