The Marseille coach after the defeat in the Super Cup in Kuwait: “We deserved to win. It hurts so much.” Luis Enrique: “Yes, they played better.” The Marseille sporting director Benatia: “When De Zerbi and I are elsewhere, give time to whoever comes before criticizing, it’s hard that way…”
From the illusion of a first trophy, to the bitterness of a not entirely fair defeat. It was a swing of emotions that Roberto De Zerbi experienced yesterday during the French Super Cup final. After going under, his Marseille team managed to overturn PSG’s lead, and within a few minutes of the final whistle it seemed done for the first title of his management. Instead, the European champions came back to the surface in injury time and then won on penalties. The Italian coach was left with only tears: “We deserved to win, I cried in the locker room”, he admitted at the end of the match in Kuwait.
WOUNDS
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“I told my boys – explained De Zerbi – that I have never cried after a defeat. But this time when I entered the locker room I cried, because we cared in a particular way. PSG is the strongest team that has played best in Europe for a year and a half, but today Marseille deserved to win. Then I told my parents that we have to ask ourselves how to always continue to do this type of performance, because today there was everything, in the offensive and defensive play, in the individual technique, in the character, everything that a team needs strong player who wants to win. The challenge is to play all the matches like tonight, which was the best of my management, four days after the worst against Nantes (0-2), but strange things happen in Marseille. Sometimes football is unfair, but PSG is used to winning trophies. I don’t believe in luck, but only in hard work: my father always told me that if you work in the right way, the results will come in life.
FUTURE
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De Zerbi’s analysis is also shared by Luis Enrique who paid tribute to his colleague at the final whistle: “Today perhaps Marseille played better than us and deserved to win. Marseille were stronger and are coached by a great coach, even if the media criticize him”. The Marseille sporting director Benatia also appreciated his team’s match, but at the end of the match he let himself go in a cryptic message, evoking the future: “It’s difficult to imagine ourselves in the next few years. We need to know how to take advantage of these matches, even if it’s not a victory, of the work done, and not always criticize. Before long you will see that there will be other people in our place, and it will be useful to give them time, even if in Marseille there is never any for anyone and we always live in adversity and in criticism. I just look to tomorrow and for me it would already be a victory if the team reproduced what they showed today against PSG.” PSG lifted the 14th Super Cup and the 58th trophy in its history in Kuwait. Marseille’s last title dates back to 2012, the League Cup, with Didier Deschamps on the bench.
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