Olympique de Marseille : The only French club to win Champions League
France is the current world cup winner . They had some of the greatest talents of football and they featured in the top clubs of Europe. Talking about the clubs , France is not known for great clubs and the only club that we heard in the present era is the PSG. But it is surprised to know that the only club to won the Champions League from France is Olympique de Marseille.
While Marseille was officially founded in 1892, it wasn’t until 1899 that the footballing section was introduced to the club. It was dominated by Rugby till that time but after that due to English and German influence the game became much popular there and came into main path.
The first taste of silverware for the football club came in the 20s, with three Coupe de France trophies in 1924, 1926 and 1927 being a harbinger of their first French championship in 1929. The introduction of professionalism in French football in 1923 paved way for further success, most notably two Ligue 1 titles and three Coupe de France trophies between 1935 and 1948.
The club’s first era of dominance arrived towards the end of the 60s, during Marcel Leclerc’s reign as president. They signed big players and won two Ligue 1 titles and two Coupe de France before 1972.The resignation of Leclerc turned out to be the beginning of an era of decline, which saw Marseille end up with a single trophy (the 1976 Coupe de France) in the next 17 years.
In 1986, the club’s fortunes changed for the better when Bernard Tapie was appointed president. By assembling a team of superstars such as Jean-Pierre Papin, Didier Deschamps and Eric Cantona, Tapie made his intentions known – make Marseille the first team in French football to win the Champions League. In 1993, this dream became a reality with a victory over Milan in the Champions League final.
In the meantime, Marseille dominated the domestic competitions, winning four consecutive Ligue 1 titles and one Coupe de France between 1989 and 1992. This laid to the foundation of the 98 World cup win.
Next decade was not great for them until Deschamps decided to step up as their manager. The club struggled in the 2011–12 season, going to the bottom of the Ligue 1 table after six matches. Nevertheless, Marseille rebounded, winning 3–0 against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League, as well as a 3–0 success over rivals PSG in November of that year. Marseille ended 2011 with a good sequence, also qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League for the second season running.
After that they were unable to achieve much except reaching to the Europa final in 2018 after 14 years. Although they lost to Atletico Madrid in the final . After long seven years they were able to qualify for the Champions league in this season as they finished second.
