André Villas-Boas looks back on his departure from OM

Olympique de Marseille had a very eventful 2020/2021 season. Between the anger of Marseille supporters towards Jacques-Henri Eyraud, the resignation of André Villas-Boas, the enthronement of Pablo Longoria as president and the arrival of Jorge Sampaoli, the Olympian club will long remember the start of the tournament. year 2021. Still without a club since his hasty departure from the club, André Villas-Boas returned to his divorce from OM in a long interview with The Athletic.

As a reminder, the Portuguese coach was appointed OM coach in 2019. A year later, after the ousting of Andoni Zubizarreta, the man who brought him to the Canebière, AVB had resigned on the table while Marseille had finished the season in second place synonymous with a return to the Champions League. In the end, AVB had swallowed his pride.

AVB really didn’t want Ntcham

“Why did he (Zubizarreta) have to be fired when it was working?” OK the owner gave me his explanation and he is the owner so I had to accept it. I wanted to leave the club, but the players convinced me to stay thanks to the relationship we had. I stayed and tried to work with the new sports director (Pablo Longoria) ”. Finally, the Lusitanian will only hold a few months before announcing his departure in the middle of a press conference following the recruitment of Olivier Ntcham, a player recruited by the Spaniard whom he did not want.

“One of the things we said to each other was that we wouldn’t sign any player without the coach’s validation. It was January (2021) and we got an offer from Aston Villa for one of our midfielders (Morgan Sanson). We are missing out on all the targets we had because they were either too expensive or it was too late. And suddenly we had no more options. And the next day I wake up and we signed Ntcham. Ntcham! I did not say yes to Ntcham. We did not have a conversation with me saying that I said yes to Ntcham. So I left. “