Roberto De Zerbi laments ‘deserved defeat’ after Strasbourg shock Marseille | OneFootball

Olympique de Marseille hoped to continue their impressive unbeaten start to the season when they closed out game week six of the Ligue 1 campaign. A visit to the Stade de la Meinau to face RC Strasbourg Alsace appeared daunting to manager Roberto De Zebri.

The Italian had warned in his Friday press conference that Marseille should expect sterner competition than from the weekend before when they clashed with bitter rivals Olympique Lyonnais. And De Zerbi’s words rang true, Le Racing recorded their second victory of the season when Diego Moreira scored the lone goal in the 40th minute.

This would be the first game that Marseille had not scored since De Zerbi became the manager over the summer. De Zerbi reacted calmly despite the defeat in his post-match comments, “We played a lot of man against man, one versus one, we lost 80% of these duels so we deserved to lose the match.” The Italian continued, “We lost too many duels, even aerial duels. It’s a deserved defeat.”

“I don’t know if it was our worst match,” De Zerbi explained. “I have complete confidence in my players. Marcelo Bielsa, one of the former coaches (at Marseille), said that you learn from defeat. And I think we’re going to learn a lot from this one.”

Marseille will look to respond to this defeat on Friday when they play host to bottom-of-the-table Angers SCO.

GFFN | Nick Hartland