On the road to success in Marseille
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When coach Roberto De Zerbi took part in the Europa League with Brighton at Olympique Marseille in 2023, he had the desire to one day coach the team from Provence – because of the “unique” atmosphere in the stadium. The fact that the Italian actually moved from the English to the French south coast shortly afterwards also had to do with the transfer policy in Brighton. The OM success coach spoke about this in an interview with the English newspaper “Telegraph” as well as about his guilty conscience after leaving Ukraine.
“The Vélodrome is difficult to describe,” said De Zerbi about the Olympique Stadium, which he experienced first hand during the 2-2 draw with Brighton in the European Cup. “During the warm-up I said to my assistants: ‘I have to come here and train this team’ because it’s different here than anywhere else. The noise, the passion of the fans, the way they live football, it’s unique.”
It was still difficult for him to leave Brighton after just two years, but although the Seagulls club management made efforts – including financially, as De Zerbi revealed – his decision was clear. He has a special connection to the city and is still grateful to those responsible at BHAFC for the opportunity, “but we had a different vision,” stated the 46-year-old. “Not in terms of individual transfers and new signings, not because of one player more or less, (…) but in terms of the vision for the foreseeable future of the club. Because in that year (after the 2022/23 season with 6th place, ed.) the squad should have been strengthened, as it happened in the year when I left.”
De Zerbi didn’t know what to do next in Brighton
De Zerbi left Brighton in 2024. The English then brought Fabian Hürzeler from FC St. Pauli for a million-dollar fee and invested more than 281 million euros in the transfer market – the second highest expenditure of all clubs worldwide in the season. After his first season in 2022/23, in which he led Brighton to 6th place, De Zerbi had new signings for a good 100 million euros.
“In Brighton we reached a point where, after qualifying for the Europa League, I no longer knew what to do next,” recalled De Zerbi. “You can offer me twice my salary, but if I don’t have a dream or a goal in mind, I can’t give my best. I would lose the motivation and purpose that I always had in football. Some people said we had a falling out, but that’s not true. Tony Bloom (owner) is a genius. Paul Barber is one of the best managers. At that time, either the bar should have been raised or my job would be done. That’s why I decided to leave the club with a heavy heart” – too De Zerbi emphasized that he didn’t want that at all and “almost suffered.”
After his departure from Brighton, when the Marseille commitment was not yet in sight, a move for De Zerbi within the Premier League was expected. “There were offers,” he asserted, but it was “not fair to talk about them.” Instead, Medhi called Benatia from Marseille. “You conquered me,” said the coach.
De Zerbi feels he “didn’t do the right thing” after Shakhtar exit
For De Zerbi, his time in Brighton was over and the second difficult farewell in a row was over. Even when he left Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia, in 2022, he had to struggle with himself, and he still does. “We may be able to imagine war, but we’ve never experienced it ourselves. Countries like Italy, France, Germany, Spain – we only know war from the perspective of our grandparents when they told us stories about it. Being stuck in the basement listening to the bombing is something completely different.”
You can flee the country and return home, said De Zerbi, “but you know that you are leaving people, Ukrainian people, behind in a war zone in such conditions. (…) I had a pretty bad conscience when I came back to Italy. I felt like I hadn’t done the right thing, especially because I always try to stand up for the weakest and most vulnerable.” You can’t change the world single-handedly, said De Zerbi, “but morally speaking, my conscience wasn’t clear. Even though my colleagues and I had helped all the Brazilians before us escape the country.” (Editor’s note: Shakhtar was already playing its home games in Lviv in western Ukraine at the time in question.)
For De Zerbi in France, it’s now all about looking up. Only PSG is above OM in the table, and the Italian has formed a team in Marseille that is currently the only team that is believed to be able to wrest the championship title from the overpowering Parisians. De Zerbi’s team scored 28 points from the first 13 games of the season. PSG has two points more and only lost a league game against one team: in Marseille.