What to remember from OM’s Champions League campaign | OneFootball

Marseille’s 0-3 collapse in Bruges on Wednesday made it a fifth defeat and capped a calamitous Champions League campaign, their elimination arriving despite flickers of hope early on.

According to L'Équipe, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will rue missed chances across the campaign. The club had hoped past mockery was behind them after finally snapping their 13-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over Olympiakos on 1 December 2020.

Roberto De Zerbi’s side started with promise, a 1-2 defeat at Real Madrid before a 4-0 dismantling of Ajax, when record signing Igor Paixao scored twice. The slide began with a 1-2 loss at Sporting, Emerson’s avoidable red card unravelling a controlled first half, then a late 0-1 defeat to Atalanta underlined their frailty in closing stages.

They revived hopes by overturning Newcastle 2-1 in a pivotal tie, ending a 17-match run of defeats against teams from the four major leagues. A 3-2 win at Union Saint-Gilloise in December should have been a warning, not near-certainty, even with 9 points and two rounds left.

Liverpool then brushed them aside 0-3 last week and, back in Bruges, they went out on the finest of margins. More than 90% of permutations favoured progress before kick-off yet it proved insufficient. A goalkeeper’s headed goal for Benfica against Real Madrid compounded matters far from Belgium, and Marseille fell on goal difference by a single strike after conceding six across their last two games.

Source: L'Équipe