Habib Beye new Marseille coach: return to the heart club

The fate of Olympique Marseille in France leaves no one interested in football cold. The unbridled love of OM fans is offset by massive rejection from supporters of other clubs, be they from Lyon or Nice. And then there is the hate from Paris, which represents the enormous rivalry between the country’s two largest cities: north against south, metropolis against province, affluence against the working class.

In this respect, they particularly enjoyed watching Marseille, the archenemy from the port city, dismantle themselves in every way after PSG’s traumatizing 5-0 win in the “Classique” a good ten days ago.

The dismissal of coach Roberto De Zerbi was followed by the resignation of OM sports director Medhi Benatia – and also another severe setback in terms of football: in the home game against Racing Strasbourg last Saturday, for which the badly disgruntled Ultras only appeared in the stands after a quarter of an hour in protest against the chaotic conditions in the club, Marseille gave up a 2-0 lead. The Alsatians equalized with a penalty in the 97th minute – it was the seventh goal for OM in added time this season. In a table after 90 minutes of play they would be Marseille tied on points with PSG, in reality they are eleven points behind.

At the beginning of the week, the American majority owner Frank McCourt, who had taken part in the Munich Security Conference in his capacity as an Internet entrepreneur, returned to Marseille. And he cleaned up properly. First, he brought back former FC Bayern professional Benatia and even gave him more power. This, in turn, was at the expense of the club president Pablo Longoria, who in the future will primarily be responsible for representative tasks, for example in the committees of UEFA and the French league association, but is now reportedly preparing to leave OM. The obviously strengthened Benatia finally managed to realize his desired solution for the successor to Coach De Zerbi.

On Wednesday evening, the club announced the signing of new head coach Habib Beye. The 48-year-old former Senegalese international has “the necessary leadership to take over a group that needs to be mobilized again after a difficult sporting period,” said Benatia in a press statement. Beye also has the “stable smell” that is valued in Provence because he played almost 170 times in the OM jersey as a full-back between 2003 and 2007.

Beye himself was released from Stade Rennes just a few days ago

Marseille wouldn’t be Marseille if there hadn’t been a few difficulties that had to be sorted out when Beye was signed. The former professional was released just a few days before De Zerbi himself, from Ligue 1 rivals Stade Rennes. Afterwards, Beye had a real mud fight with those responsible at the club from Brittany. He demanded a year and a half of salary as severance pay, and Rennes threatened legal action in return. The accusation: “serious misconduct”.

It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that things calmed down, possibly because Rennes was able to present a new coach: Franck Haise, who once led Racing Lens back to the top of France and was even considered a potential Liverpool coach after the Klopp era, is taking over the helm in Rennes. Shortly afterwards, the Bretons announced their official separation from Beye.

He had repeatedly emphasized in the past that OM was his “heart club” and that one of his goals was to work there as a coach one day. However, critics doubt whether Beye, who is still inexperienced as a coach, will be able to survive in the heated atmosphere there. His greatest success to date was promotion with the small Parisian club FC Red Star from the third to the second French league. At Rennes, where he took over as coach almost exactly a year ago, he failed to qualify for international business and had a mixed start to the current season. The new man on the line will be in focus for the first time on Friday – again in Brittany: Olympique Marseille will be visiting Stade Brest.