First official game of the season, first defeat and great concern. In immense difficulty in all areas, Olympique de Marseille (OM) under new coach Marcelino was beaten 1-0 on Wednesday August 9 in Athens by Panathinaikos in the third preliminary round of the Champions League and is already in a very perilous position before the second leg.

“The Champions League is very important to us, we all have to work to be there every year,” Marseille President Pablo Longoria repeated on Monday. But 3rd place at the end of last season forced his team to make their way to the pools via two always terribly perilous preliminary rounds and Wednesday’s defeat already puts OM with their backs to the wall, forced to react strongly in six days to residence.

“We have to be ready”, repeated, Tuesday in front of the press, the new Marseille coach Marcelino; “Of course we’re ready,” said evening captain Samuel Gigot. But that wasn’t quite true, and it showed.

Still digesting the transition between the furious football of Igor Tudor and that much more calm of Marcelino, the Marseillais seemed lost on Wednesday in Athens, without tactical certainties and physically struggling.

There was, however, a real curiosity to see this team again redone from floor to ceiling this summer, to discover these new faces, with five rookies lined up from the start, and this new style.

But the start of the Marcelino era was therefore very worrying and we saw in Athens that the Asturian had had too little time to settle his ideas. Result, in an atmosphere very far from being as frightening as announced in the small Apostolos Nikolaïdis stadium, beyond the decade, OM with Marcelino sauce seemed very far from the mark.

Kondogbia expelled, players out of form

In a 4-4-2 almost too clear, with lines drawn as a rule, the Marseillais did not build the slightest action during the first 20 minutes, spent running behind the ball, which the Greeks did not then do much.

At the 22? minute, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang placed a header well above the bar then, at the 45? minute, Azzedine Ounahi, in great difficulty on the left throughout the game, finally found the frame of a curled shot law.

In the meantime, Geoffrey Kondogbia had been warned in the 30th second by a referee with an easy card and several players had already seemed very struggling, such as rookies Iliman Ndiaye or Ismaïla Sarr.

The second period was even worse, with only one positive action in the 50th minute, with two dangerous strikes in quick succession from Ounahi and then Jonathan Clauss.

But OM above all suffered enormously, with in particular a very, very weak time around the hour mark, which woke up the Greek public and resulted in the expulsion of Kondogbia (65th) for a second yellow this time indisputable . Then the Marseillais did nothing but defend, including attacking entrants Amine Harit and François-Régis Mughe, hoping that the relative attacking quality of “Pana” would save them.

But the players in the green jersey succeeded in a constructed action, with a nice discount from Ioannidis for the Brazilian Bernard, who deceived Pau Lopez (1-0, 83rd).

In Athens, OM dreamed of launching a European marathon that would take them at least to the group stage, or even more, after coming close to qualifying for the round of 16 last season. His sporting ambitions depend on it and his economic health as well. But this will require doing much better on Tuesday at the Stade-Vélodrome.