With 12 goals, 10 assists and flashes of genius galore which made him part of the standard team last season, Dimitri Payet was the major asset of Olympique de Marseille, second in the Ligue 1, and qualified for the Champions League. Also rewarded with the most beautiful goal of the Europa League Conference where he was elected in the eleven-type, the number ten remains essential within the Marseille training, at 35 years old!
The last warm-up match against AC Milan proved his influence once again. In the defeat (0-2), the reasons for satisfaction were the foresight and the quality of the passes of the Reunionese, unwavering at the dawn of his seventh season in a row with OM, the ninth after an interlude of one year and a half at West Ham, his seventeenth in Ligue 1.
One goal from double 100
His professional career, which began in December 2005 with Nantes, commands respect, even from the greatest, like legend Chris Waddle recently declaring that number 10 was the current player who “looked the most like him”. Like the English left-hander, the 2016 European vice-champion has a knack for stirring up the crowds, while combining good play and efficiency.
The Marseille requirement, he knows it, and the tensions mentioned between the players and the new coach Igor Tudor the day after a difficult preparation (a victory, a draw and three defeats), will not make him lose the thread. Not with 467 L1 matches on the clock, let alone after all he’s been through.
Marseille can count on the sense of collective duty of its captain, “Marseillais à vie” as he declares himself, to do as well or even better than the previous exercise. Maybe not in the league, where he will be…
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