Football. Olympique de Marseille announces the arrival of De Zerbi as coach

Olympique de Marseille made official on Saturday evening the arrival for three seasons of Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi, who promised “to help the club regain the rank that Marseille deserves.”

“I felt a very strong desire to join this club. The history and prestige surrounding OM, the passion and fervour of its supporters, the seriousness and enthusiasm shown to me” by the management, listed De Zerbi in a press release.

“A new ambitious chapter”

“I look forward to sitting on the bench at the Orange Vélodrome, this time as OM coach, and helping the club regain the rank that Marseille deserves,” he added.

For the American owner of OM, Frank McCourt, “his arrival marks the beginning of an ambitious new chapter and constitutes an essential element of our strategy for the future successes” of the club.

De Zerbi is “a talented and renowned coach at European level”, welcomed President Pablo Longoria for his part, for whom this arrival marks the start of a “new sporting cycle”.

>> Also read: Flamboyant play, strong character… who is Roberto De Zerbi, new OM coach?

Despite a season that ended in a dismal eighth place and was marked by multiple coaching changes, Pablo Longoria and his team pulled off a great coup by attracting this highly-rated coach on the market.

The atmosphere at the Vélodrome had left its mark on him

At the end of last season, OM said thank you to Jean-Louis Gasset, who came to save the day after a season in which everything went wrong, and set out to find a new coach who would agree to lead a club deprived of the European Cup for the first time since the 2019/20 season.

The Brescia native, who notably played for Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk, imagined himself more at Bayern Munich, Liverpool or Manchester United.

But the best European benches found takers and the OM option remained alive, thanks also to Brighton’s visit to Marseille last autumn for a Europa League match. De Zerbi had loved the atmosphere at the Vélodrome. The arrival of a coach of this calibre is also a plus for the transfer window and some Marseille players who were thinking of leaving could think twice.