by Salvatore Riggio
Former Rossoneri player Rino Gattuso has been fired by club president Pablo Longoria. In Ligue 1 Marseille have not won since 17 December
Rino Gattuso has been sacked by Marseille. They haven’t won in Ligue 1 since December 17th, 2-1 against Clermont. A very deep crisis, after an encouraging autumn. Now, after the defeat against Brest (1-0, 18 February), the gap from the Champions League zone has increased to eight points. Of course, nothing is impossible, but the fact is that the French club immediately fired the midfielder, who in his career also coached (among others) Milan and Napoli. «In football you need a soul and that’s what we’re missing. We have to be honest: we don’t deserve this shirt. You can’t play with this mentality. I apologize to the fans. We have reached rock bottom, we can’t go lower than this”, were Gattuso’s words full of bitterness. Of a man who has now understood that he has reached the end with Marseille and so, in fact, it was.
The president, Pablo Longoria, and his advisor, the former Juventus and Roma player Benatia, had a long discussion after Brest managed to win with two minutes to go by playing from the last half hour with one man less. In short, the situation for Gattuso was really complicated, hence the drastic decision. Even if the French club doesn’t just blame the former midfielder. For example, Benatia, before the last match, lashed out at the right back, Jonathan Clauss: «They warned me about the somewhat borderline behavior of some elements, Jonathan was one of them. He came to the coach’s office and we explained to him what we expect from him as a leader and member of the national team in terms of behavior, we thought the message had gotten through but it didn’t.” So the full-back was on the market for the whole of January, but he never left Marseille and against Brest he started the entire match.
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February 19, 2024 (modified February 19, 2024 | 12:32)
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