The End of the Marseille Malaise
More than any other major league, France is in desperate need of a new story to tell. The league is shriveling in the shadow cast by Paris St.-Germain, and despite its clever marketing strategy as the “league of talents,” it has spent much of the year struggling to find anyone willing to pay to broadcast the latest iteration of P.S.G.’s inevitable procession to the title.
That is a shame, because there is one genuinely interesting side in Ligue 1 this year: Olympique de Marseille. Predicting that Marseille might do well is, of course, a fool’s errand; no team in Europe is more consistent in finding ways to shoot itself in the foot. But the signs are encouraging: a run to the semifinals of the Europa League last year, and now the appointment of Roberto De Zerbi, a man who was, until quite recently, one of the most coveted coaches in Europe.
Marseille is, most likely, not the sort of job De Zerbi thought he might get when he decided the time was right to leave Brighton: Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea all seemed more fitting next steps. That he has ended up at the Stade Velodrome, though, should be a fillip not just to Marseille but to France as a whole. If his team can even create the illusion of a challenge for P.S.G., it would be of enormous benefit to the league.
Re-V.A.R.-Lution
In the far north of Europe, the first embers are starting to flicker. Technology, we have been told repeatedly, is here to stay in soccer. The game, like a shark, does not move backward. The only solution to the growing body of evidence that V.A.R. was not such a great idea is to improve it, not to abolish it.
Norway, though, appears to disagree. There have been mounting protests against the use of V.A.R. in the country’s top tier, and the game’s authorities there have promised to hold “open” discussions on the merits and drawbacks of the technology before a vote in March on whether to continue with it.
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