The young PSG player Warren Zaire-Emery was born during a very special year in the history of OM – PSG.
The Classico, or “the Classic” if we want to say it the French way, a highly anticipated Ligue 1 match between Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint Germain, takes place on Sunday March 31 at the Stade Vélodrome. This is the 107th confrontation between the two teams for a (very) largely favorable result for the Parisians. If we only look at the last 39 matches between the two teams, Paris has won 25 times compared to only 8 victories for OM. Marseille also remains on two big defeats, 4-0 in the first leg last September and 3-0 in Marseille during the 2022-2023 financial year.
If Marseille is very hard hit by injuries in the run-up to this Classico, Paris is relatively spared and will have in its ranks a very young player, great hope of French football, Warren Zaire-Emery. The Parisian, born March 8, 2006, is only 18 years old. So we had fun finding the Classico teams from 2006 and we discovered that the players present on the match sheet at the time are quite astonishing.
To recontextualize, the PSG – OM of 2006 was the Classico of the “minots”. On Monday February 27, 2006, Olympique de Marseille learned that PSG, fearing excesses around the meeting, allocated to its supporters half of the places which are normally allocated to Marseille supporters. The president at the time, Pape Diouf, considered President Pierre Blayau irresponsible, who wanted to market the seats just above the Olympian supporters. In reaction, while at first the club did not want to play the match, José Anigo, the sporting director, proposed sending a team made up of young players to face PSG. An idea that will be retained. The OM lineup with Carrasso – Bocaly, Civelli, André Luis, Pradié, Cantareil – Dennoun, Gastine, Delfim – N’Diaye, Gimenez then Flachi, Ngom and Diop will put on an incredible match to snatch a 0-0 draw at the Parc des Princes.
Opposite, the Parisian team was nothing to write home about, the era of millions of euros for the Qataris and current stars being still very far away. For this Classic, the Parisian team notably had in its ranks the late Modeste M’Bami, who died tragically on January 7, 2023. But it was also the time of Lionel Letizi in the cages, Jérome Rothen, Christophe Landrin, Mario Yepes , Stephane Pichot, David Rozhenal, Edouard Cissé, Cristian Rodriguez, Fabrice Pancrate, Salomon Kalou and especially the star, Pedro Miguel Pauleta.
This season, Paris is once again flying over the French championship with 12 points ahead of Brest before the 27th day while Marseille is only 7th in a very delicate season even if the Olympians remain on a good series in the championship despite the defeat at Rennes before the international break.