Both are big clubs in their respective leagues, both have quality in their squad, yet both are having a below par season and struggling to get back on top. The Ligue 1 2010 champion was struggling greatly, sitting within relegation zone and fighting to stay off it. Likewise we too had a less than stellar start and have struggled all over the pitch. Both clubs have slowly gained some points back, OM are currently in 8th 11 points behind 1st. Inter are 7th with 10 points behind. The draw couldn't have picked two more similar clubs than these two, which makes the run up to February an interesting one with seeing who will be in form by then. Both team managers are relinquishing these draw, Ranieri especially "It will be a great match between Inter and Marseille and between myself and Deschamps: he knocked me out in 2004 when he was at Monaco and I was at Chelsea." until Frebruary
game is this wednesday, both teams still performing below their means though OM has climbed up a bit since the draw with the 3-0 slap from bologna I hope the team can turn it up for this game, we'll probably still see ranieri at the helm for this game since it would be drastic to change personnel with this game very near
squad for Wednesday's game Goalkeepers: 1 Julio Cesar, 12 Luca Castellazzi, 21 Paolo Orlandoni; Defenders: 4 Javier Zanetti, 6 Lucio, 13 Maicon, 23 Andrea Ranocchia, 25 Walter Samuel, 26 Cristian Chivu, 37 Davide Faraoni, 55 Yuto Nagatomo. Midfielders: 5 Dejan Stankovic, 10 Wesley Sneijder, 17 Angelo Palombo, 18 Andrea Poli, 19 Esteban Cambiasso, 20 Joel Obi, 48 Lorenzo Crisetig; Forwards: 7 Giampaolo Pazzini, 9 Diego Forlan, 22 Diego Milito, 28 Mauro Zarate. petty much a full squad with samuel, milito and dejan returning from injury/fever
I actually want the team to really push and win since our home record(both in league and CL) is not something to brag about, a 1-1 draw would be fine
line ups Olympique Marseille: 30 Mandanda; 2 Azpilicueta, 21 Diawara, 3 N'Koulou, 15 Morel; 4 Diarra, 7 Cheyrou; 18 Amalfitano, 28 Valbuena, 20 A.Ayew; 9 Brandao. Subs: 1 Bracigliano, 10 Gignac, 12 Kaboré, 13 Traoré, 23 J.Ayew, 24 Fanni, 26 Sabo. Coach: Didier Deschamps. Inter: 1 Julio Cesar; 13 Maicon, 6 Lucio, 25 Samuel, 26 Chivu; 4 Zanetti, 5 Stankovic, 19 Cambiasso; 10 Sneijder; 9 Forlan, 28 Zarate. Subs: 12 Castellazzi, 23 Ranocchia, 55 Nagatomo, 18 Poli, 20 Obi, 7 Pazzini, 22 Milito. Coach: Claudio Ranieri. I honestly didn't see zarate and forlan starting, don't know why nagatomo is not starting it looks like a 4-3-1-2 unless Ranieri uses sneijder on the left in a 4-4-2 sadly I'll miss most of the game
watched from minute 25, zarate, stankovic under performing forlan has been doing well here and there, sneijder has been quiet, cambiasso having a fantastic game as well as pupi the defense: Lucio was a rock besides that one blimp, samuel has done ok though sloppy with the fouling, maicon doing ok needs to get more involved in the attack, I would still switch out chivu for nagatomo
0-1 for OM in the last minute, not what I wanted but its not disastorous since half of our players played decently after a while in the second half I felt like we weren't going to score, sure we had some crosses here and there but it never felt like we were going for the win zarate needed to be subbed out but I thought ranieri would go for Milito instead of obi who doesn't add anything to the attack and is more of a covering defensive player don't know why stankovic played the whole game when we had poli available hoping to bounce back vs a striving Napoli on sunday
Terrible loss for you guys. I thought Inter played quite well, they didn't give up any quality scoring chances until injury time. The goal was well executed but the problem was letting the Marseille player have a clean shot on goal to force the game winning corner. Thought Forlan played well, still not sure why Zarate was playing, being Lazio fan he's very frustrating and not the type of player you want in a big spot like this. It isn't over yet hopefully you guys can score some goals from now until the 2nd leg to boost some confidence.
yeah a draw would have been a more telling score, half of our players that usually start played better compared to league so it wasn't a terrible performance chivu was at fault for the goal... I think Ranieri tried to both surprise OM by using our least used players and save milito and maybe pazzini for the big encounter vs Napoli this sunday the only positive thing about zarate was that he made it look like our counters were going to produce something, too bad he sometimes holds the ball too long or tries to hard to dribble its still do able and yeah hopefully we can start get out of this non scoring runt with some goals leading up to the 2nd game
I defended him a lot last season but this season it seems like every time he plays, he's responsible or partially responsible for a goal the other team scores.
The loss of Motta is massive. Cambiasso played a good game and was Inter's best player IMO along with Lucio. You're quite right Cambiasso isn't the force he once was and is beginning to fade despite his efforts today. Inter are beginning to revert to their old ways. They're trying to revive their attack by letting and replacing forwards while neglecting the rest of the squad. The defense and midfield are old and there aren't many suitable young replacements. To me Forlan, Milito, Pazzini, Zarate and Castaignos is more than adequate though none have really played together for any length of time. As poor as Inter have looked I think their experience can go a long way in the CL and we saw that for most of this game.
I thought the team played decently well compared to our league performances of late spending will be cut shorter and shorter once the new uefa rules come into play
OM as good as arsenal and chelsea probably not but napoli and milan are not inter and tactically its not the same game
Maicon out for 15-20 days after having a knee injury yesterday, guarin still not looking good with the calf injury and won't be available until bit later than what was thought
wow shocking defending to let marseille to get an away goal! there seamed to be no real style of play from inter, which is why i pray no italian club gives anymore jobs to people like ranieri and all the other oldies, their brand of football stinks and only care about the result,
I don't even know what to say. There's more broken here than can be fixed by firing a manager. Our center backs have killed us all year. Should've seen it coming.
well we won, but we are out lucky goal from brandao at the end and even with the late PK vs OM we are knocked out thanks to their away goal 1st half both teams played better than the 1st leg with us having 2 unbelievable chances, had we scored on either of them this would have been a different ending Ranieri took out sneijder in the second half to go into a 4-4-2, we scored and were getting close to scoring and alas the goal came thanks to a maicon corner which bounced all over finally ending on milito's feet and he scored, afterwards it was all us trying to get another but a long ball to brandao which bounced off his back and both samuel and lucio were caught off guard and then bam 1-1 late pk wasn't enough, a pad on the back for most of our players who I thought were better but it wasn't enough good luck to Om in the next round
Pathetic defending and goalkeeping by Lucio, Samuel, and Julio Cesar. Unbelievable fail. I will most likely have nightmares about that sad excuse for a CL tie-winning goal. Ranieri was terrible again. I mean not starting Cambiasso is one thing... but subbing off Sneijder (he had a problem though) AND Forlan BEFORE the 60th minute?? In a game that was likely to go to extra time??? Towards the end of the match Stankovic was cramping up, and any competent manager would not have expected him to play the full 90 (he just came back from injury) nevermind what was looking almost certain to be 120 minutes. Dumbass coach.
a very lucky long ball worked and samuel and lucio did fail in trying clear it JC did have some fault since he went to ground to early but he had trust in samuel to knock the ball towards his right when Samuel tried to block the shot with his left leg this is just a thought of mine since I too find some choices baffling on cucho: OM fielded 2 defensive mids which means that sneijder was going to be forced out wide therefore frustrating him and taking him out of the game eventually switching formations which brings me to stankovic stankovic: one of only 2 real CMs we have the other being Poli and perhaps was started in case deschamps fielded 2 dms making a transition to a 4-4-2 easier once he took sneijder out since it would allow obi to slide for RM making obi-poli-dejan-zanetti in mid work better however during the 1st half and part of the second he looked to be much deeper in mid and not sure of whether to attack making this a weak point of ours in addition to him not being the best of cover players defensively + he has been starting a lot and was slow to keep up at times forlan: not surprised here, has started 3 games and looked ok but only had 2 shots and didn't really create good opportunities for the team/combination passing a coach makes changes based on what is happening/will affect the game/ will be the most useful not already thinking that the team will go into extra time when they haven't yet scored hence why he brought on pazzini still some of this is strictly my opinion and not what ranieri actually thought and should not be read as excuses