Saint-Etienne and defender Tanguy
Kouassi to Bayern Munich.
Despite these setbacks, it’s hard to
see anything other than another season
of Parisian domination. Given that they
completed another domestic treble by
winning both the Coupe de France and
League Cup behind closed doors inJuly,
it’s going to be mighty hard for anybody
to push PSG off their perch.
Marseille have put their faith in
Pablo Longoria to help them do just
that. The 33-year-old Spaniard was
installed as OM’s sporting director in
July, having previously worked at clubs
like Valencia,Juventus, Atalanta and
Newcastle United. He is a fan of Andre
Villas-Boas, and even tried to recruit
the Portuguese coach while he was
head of recruitment for Recreativo
de Huelva in Spain. Longoria replaces
the departing Andoni Zubizarreta to
“supervise the entire sporting functions
of the club, from the first team through
to the academy and including
recruitment.”
So far, he has
recruited two
21-year-olds- midfielder
Pape Gueye
from Le Havre
and Argentinian
defender Leonardo
Balerdi on loan
from Borussia Dortmund – while
Villarreal defender Alvaro Gonzalez
has joined permanently after last
season’s loan. With Marseille playing
Champions League football for the
first time in seven years, they will
need the stars of last season to
hit the ground running.
F R A N C E L
IG
U E 1 2 0 2 0- 2
1
Wonderkid...
Saint-Etienne new
boy Adil AouchicheVillas-Boas...can the Marseille coach
improve on last season’s second place?Despite these setbacks,
it’s hard to see
anything other than
another season of
Parisian domination