Looking into the endless galleries of Stade Vélodrome, a row of former Olympique Marseille players take the applause. This is one of the greatest football venues in the world: daring, compelling, wild and volatile. All of these eleven men graced it at some point, some at its emotional peak. To the right of the group stands Basile Boli, wearing a vest and taking in the scene through the shades. It was Boli who anchored Marseille in the global consciousness 31 years ago. He passed Sebastiano Rossi in Munich to beat a decorated Milan side and win the 1992–93 Champions League. He knows better than anyone that, if the stars align, there is nothing like it anywhere else.
The group of legends has been invited to a reunion of African players, or players of African descent, who once wore the all-white kit. They watch the current team Nice play and with the match deep into extra time, the score is 2-2. Marseille are down to ten men since Faris Moumbagna’s bright red card just before half-time, but only a win will keep them in serious contention for this year’s European spots. In the game’s final attack, Gabon international Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang somehow musters the blistering speed of yesteryear to skin two defenders and run one-on-one. A stadium, or rather an entire city, holds its breath. Aubameyang chips Marcin Bulka, but the weight is a fraction too heavy and the ball pings off the crossbar. It’s the story of their season.
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Mastering Marseilles is, as one senior member of their government puts it, like “sitting on a volcano.” They host Atalanta in the first leg of the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday evening and the hope is for a controlled blowout. A second European title would feel like an awakening. for too long it has lain dormant: a byword for chaos, short-termism, unpredictability, perhaps still struggling to shake off the shadow of Bernard Tapie-era corruption that hung over the heady nights of the early 1990s.
Pablo Longoria leads the team that turns the tanker around steadily and not without hitches. “The potential of this club is enormous, but to realize it we need to be a stable Champions League club,” says the Marseille president in his office on the club’s training ground, where cypresses line the driveways and blowing back and forth in the stadium. seasonal mistral. “The passion in this city is part of the landscape and we must take full advantage of that, but at the same time you need a vision and strategy for the future that brings stability.”
Oviedo-born Longoria, now a boyish 38, was appointed sporting director in July 2020 and became president six months later. Throwing someone so young into the oven felt like a gamble by American businessman Frank McCourt, who bought the club seven and a half years ago. But Longoria had a great reputation: he was still in his teens scouting for Newcastle before making his name with roles at Juventus, whose name returns as a structural model in the power centers of Marseille, and at Valencia. “When I arrived, we needed immediate sporting results to transform the club and give value to everything around it,” he says. “But now it is very important to have a strategy, a very clear vision for the future. The next cycle of European competitions is very important and we must target a place in the top 24 clubs.”
In a landscape dominated by the financial might of Paris Saint-Germain, a regular finish in France’s top two would mean progress. Marseille, who last won Ligue 1 when they claimed their ninth title in 2010, have finished second twice since McCourt’s takeover and finished third last season. On-field fortunes steadily improved, but the picture in 2023-2024 to any outsider was one of dysfunction. Last summer, Longoria appointed Marcelino, who was his head coach at Valencia, to the same position, but that only lasted three months.
Marcelino resigned, citing “serious threats and insults”, after a meeting between club and fans in which no one in the hierarchy was spared. Not satisfied with a mixed start, the fanbase also called on Longoria, along with other executives, to resign. Personal threats against club staff were alleged and the director of football, Javier Ribalta, left shortly afterwards along with the director of strategy Pedro Iriondo. Longoria agreed to stay on after conversations with McCourt – “I like resilience as a concept in life,” he says – and, through a fateful conversation with Gennaro Gattuso, appointed veteran Jean-Louis Gasset as their third campaign manager . in February.
“I’m still trying to understand why we ended up in this situation, because it was a level of tension that is not normal in football,” he said. In October, a group of Marseille fans attacked the Lyon team bus and injured their coach Fabio Grosso and assistant Raffaele Longo. It led to the match being postponed. There is sometimes the feeling that whoever runs Marseille is dealing with something uncontrollable: that some order is emerging despite the lava bubbling beneath.
But there is also a sense that Marseille, in their attempts to become a modern European power, is doing something right. The appointment of Stéphane Tessier, a famous football executive around Ligue 1, as director general was intended to usher in a clear structure and take steps towards financial sustainability. Tessier split the club’s events department into a new entity, Mars360, designed to fully exploit the 67,000-capacity Stade Vélodrome and other venues in the area.
Marseille’s wider commercial performance has soared, with revenues doubling in the past two years and locally based shipping company CMA is among those to sign a sponsorship deal. This year, Deloitte has ranked Marseille 20th in the football money competition with a turnover of €258.4m (£220.9m). In a French league that has struggled to secure a viable domestic television rights deal since the collapse of MediaPro’s €3.25 billion deal in 2021 – and few clubs are entirely happy with the private equity injection – group CVC that has closed about half of that gap – Additional ways to generate revenue are essential.
“I think we have transformed a lot of things and I am proud of the way we have developed the institutional part of the club,” says Longoria. Former LA Dodgers owner McCourt has invested more than €500 million in Marseille, but they want to be more agile. Despite reports to the contrary, McCourt’s commitment remains for the long term; his company, McCourt Global, would like to make additional investments to bridge the gap with the giants in England, Germany, Spain and Paris, but he has no plans to sell the company.
A Europa League win could be a turning point, but other measures of success also exist. There had long been a local impression that Marseille, which sold a record 48,000 season tickets this season, had become sloppy in dealing with their roots. The club’s community foundation was established last year Treizième Homme, which aims to create a clear thread that connects social initiatives in a city with great economic contrasts with the club itself. The return of Boli and his colleagues was part of a concerted effort to mark a past that, while always acknowledged, had rarely been used to visually inspire the present.
Medhi Benatia, the talent from Marseille’s youth academy who made a career at Roma, Bayern Munich and Juventus, returned last year as a sports advisor with the task of helping young players through. Many expensive stars have passed through the club over the decades without significant upside. “It was always very difficult for players in the academy,” says Benatia. “But now we have the opportunity to bring five, six or seven players into the first team and that is different than before. Playing here as a youngster has always been difficult: there is a lot of pressure and in the past there has not always been much support from the coaches and staff.
“We need to teach players what this club has been and what it represents. And we have to teach them not only to be good football players, but also to withstand the pressure in such a passionate city.”
Outside the club’s academy building, 18-year-old striker shakes hands with Keyliane Abdallah and is greeted by youth technical director Marco Otero. Last weekend, Abdallah made his professional debut in a draw in Toulouse. On an adjacent training pitch, Marseille’s under-17 and under-19 squads are addressed by former Cameroon goalkeeper Joseph Antoine-Bell, a veteran who has played here more than 100 times.
Before the players disperse, Jean-Pierre Papin, former Ballon d’Or winner and feared striker of the Champions League-winning side, crosses the pitch to salute. Papin was brought back as second-team coach last fall during a period of poor results; their fortunes have soared since then. It’s another small step towards recapturing the club’s soul.
Marseille won’t regain the superpower status of three decades ago overnight, but Longoria sees a clear path to competing with the elite again. “We need to create something very strong around our primary values, with a team and a mentality that is different and stronger,” he says. Beating Atalanta and lifting a trophy in Dublin later this month could signal that a monumental, unruly giant is finally on the move.