Olympique de Marseille Vs FC Sochaux Montbéliard – Ligue 1 preview
Last season’s Ligue 1 runners-up to LOSC Lille, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Olympique-de-Marseille-c40127 will play their first game of the 2011/2012 Ligue 1 campaign by hosting FC Sochaux Montbéliard at the Stade Velodrome on August 6, 2011.
Marseille
After watching his side’s title defence fade in the last few weeks of the 2010/2011 season, Didier Deschamps will be looking to turn things around this time and would want to lift the Championelle with the Rhone giants once again.
It was a bitter sweet revenge for Les Phoceens when they managed to beat Lille 5-4 in the Trophee des Champions after coming trailing 3-1 with not much time left. Deschamps would be hopeful that the recent win in Tangiers could serve as an aperitif ahead
of their first game of the new campaign.
After making a fairly indifferent start to the 2010/2011 campaign, Deschamps would be hoping his team set off on a more solid footing this season. However, their start of the new season kicks off with a tricky match against Sochaux who are no mere pushovers
any more.
Soachaux
Les Lionceaux finished fifth in the Ligue 1 standings last season but with departure of a number of players who were integral in the club’s fifth-place finish last season, new coach Mecha Bazdarevic is satisfied with the players he has at his disposal.
Ideye Brown left the club to join Dynamo Kyiv which means that a lot of pressure would be on striker http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Modibo-Maiga-c26167 to score more goals than he did last season. The club has done well in holding on to highly-rated midfield duo of Marvin Martin and Ryad Boudebouz.
The two midfielders were linked with moves away from Stade Auguste Bonal throughout the summer and Bazdarevic must be heaving a sigh of relief knowing that the club’s two most important players are still there.
While talking to the media, Bazdarevic said, “I hope it’s not going to be re-opened, because he’s a very important player. It would be a great loss for the squad, even if Sochaux is bigger than Marvin Martin. We have other good players but he’s someone who’s
very important to the team.”
Head to head
In 53 meetings between the two sides, Les Phoceens have managed to win 27 times while Sochaux have managed just ten victories over their Rhone opponents.
Marseille have won all of the last three games between the two sides at home and since Didier Deschamps took charge of the club, Les Phoceens haven’t yet lost to the Montbéliard-based outfit.
Team news
Marseille
France international http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Mathieu-Valbuena-c24690 missed the Trophee des Champions victory due to a rib injury but the diminutive midfielder is available for the tricky tie. Last summer’s signing from Toulouse, Andre-Pierre Gignac is still days away from fitness after
undergoing a groin operation so the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/France-c2899 international will miss out his team’s first game of the new campaign.
Sochaux
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Jérémie-Bréchet-c18326 are set to miss the first Ligue game of the 2011/2012 campaign.
Prediction
The game is set to be a crunching encounter. Though it is still not clear whether Boudebouz and Martin will feature for Les Lionceaux or not, the duo’s presence would definitely give Sochaux a lot of advantage over the home side whose defence has to improve
drastically.
Predicted final score: Marseille 2-2 Sochaux
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