True grit: How Marseille turned their luck around to reach the Europa League final

The Vélodrome is roaring again and in Wednesday’s Europa League final against Atlético Madrid, Marseille will contest their first European final since 2004

Though underdogs against Diego Simeone’s streetwise Atlético, Marseille will carry massive momentum to Lyon’s Groupama Stadium (Getty)

Marseille’s Stade Vélodrome was not a happy place on 14 September.

Rudi García’s side were playing their first Europa League group game against Konyaspor and only 8,649 spectators turned up. In a ground that can hold over 67,000, that made for a lot of empty white seats. It was the club’s lowest attendance of the 21st century.

In their two previous games, Marseille had been thrashed 6-1 at Monaco and beaten 3-1 on home turf by Rennes. Fans called for García to resign during the game against Rennes and those who bothered to show up for the visit of Konyaspor expressed anger towards the club’s American owner Frank McCourt and president Jacques-Henri Eyraud.

“EMPTY LIKE JACQUES-HENRI’S PROMISES [AND] RUDI’S TACTICS” read one banner on the near-deserted Virage Sud. Another, written in English, urged: “McCOURT, GET YOUR BALLS OUT!”

McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, bought Marseille in October 2016, pledging to invest over €200m in new players, but last summer’s transfer business left fans cold. While hated rivals Paris Saint-Germain shattered records to recruit Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, OM plumped for seasoned but unglamorous campaigners like Adil Rami, Luiz Gustavo, Kostas Mitroglou and goalkeeper Steve Mandanda, who returned after a disappointing spell at Crystal Palace.

A header from Rami earned Marseille a subdued victory over Konyaspor. It seemed an unlikely turning point, but unbeknown to Marseille’s fans, a renaissance was taking shape. Eight months on, the Vélodrome is roaring again and in Wednesday’s Europa League final against Atlético Madrid, Marseille will contest their first European final since 2004.

Frank McCourt bought Marseille in October 2016 (Getty)

What Marseille’s recruitment drive lacked in stardust, it compensated for in grit and experience. For the wise old heads in the changing room, the defeats against Monaco and Rennes engendered not panic, but a calm and steely determination to turn the situation around. After the loss to Rennes, the players sat down and had it out. “That’s when the group really became a group,” said Portuguese centre-back Rolando.

García, the former Lille and Roma coach, went back to the tactics board, abandoning his favoured 4-3-3 formation for a more solid 4-2-3-1 shape in which rugged Cameroonian midfielder André-Frank Zambo Anguissa partners the peerless Luiz Gustavo in front of the back four.

Dimitri Payet has flourished in the system, whether on the left or as a number 10, and Florian Thauvin is enjoying a stunning campaign, scoring 26 goals and supplying 17 assists from the right flank to banish all memories of his unhappy five-month spell at Newcastle. Only Edinson Cavani has scored more goals in Ligue 1 than Thauvin this season and only Neymar can match Payet’s tally of 13 assists. Despite ferocious competition for places, both players have good chances of making France’s World Cup squad.

Florian Thauvin has scored 26 goals and supplied 17 assists this season for OM (Getty)

The combination of mental resilience and attacking flair makes Marseille a team worth watching. On no fewer than eight occasions they have secured results with goals in the last five minutes, saving their most dramatic exploits for a Europa League campaign that began against Belgian side Oostende in the third qualifying round last July.

In the quarter-finals, a chaotic 5-2 win over RB Leipzig at a full, frothing Vélodrome brought to mind the heady night in May 2004 when Didier Drogba put Newcastle to the sword in the UEFA Cup semi-finals.

With Leipzig ahead on away goals, Payet gave OM a 4-3 aggregate advantage with a sumptuous goal – steering the ball into the top-left corner with the outside of his right foot – before right-back Hiroki Sakai made the tie safe in stoppage time. Baby-faced midfielder Maxime Lopez admitted that when Sakai scored, he was close to tears.

Dimitri Payet has flourished in the current system this season (Getty)

There were similar scenes at Red Bull Salzburg in the semi-finals when, with four minutes of extra time remaining, substitute Rolando volleyed in Payet’s corner to put OM in the final. “ROLANDO BALLON D’OR” screamed L’Équipe the following day.

Though underdogs against Diego Simeone’s streetwise Atlético, Marseille will carry massive momentum to Lyon’s Groupama Stadium, their fanatical supporters already giddy at the thought of the club winning a second major European trophy (after 1993’s Champions League triumph) at the home of rivals Lyon.

Marseille, who last won Ligue 1 in 2010, have struggled in big matches this season, taking only two points from a possible 18 against PSG, Monaco and Lyon, but their players are convinced that an upset is within their power.

“In this team, there’s a soul and a force of character that are pretty incredible,” Thauvin told L’Équipe this week. “Anything is possible in one match.”