Feyenoord brought a memorable European squatter on Thursday in De Kuip. The team from Rotterdam blew Olympique Marseille over in the opening phase of the Conference League semifinal with two quick goals, but let the French come back to 2-2 in the first half. Cyriel Dessers was rewarded six seconds after the break for his fierce hunting and Feyenoord shot to a brilliant result with his second of the evening: 3-2. The return will follow in the Stade Vélodrome in a week.
The match had an extremely intense opening phase, in which Feyenoord gave full pressure and both teams had enormous opportunities. The score could have been 2-2 after fifteen minutes, but Dessers missed a ball fortunately bouncing in front of his foot, while Bamba Dieng did not produce an effective shot one-on-one with Ofir Marciano on two occasions. Marcos Senesi came on the other side with a header very close, but just didn’t clear the ball enough.
Feyenoord adjusted their sights and scored spectacularly twice in two minutes. Dessers got the ball into the penalty area in the eighteenth minute after a brilliant heel from Luis Sinisterra and scored: 1-0. Two minutes later, Reiss Nelson sprinted to freedom on the right, before his low cross through the outlaw Sinisterra was completed: 2-0. The Colombian was lucky that his shot bounced off defender Valentin Rongier’s leg.
Marseille seemed ripe for the slaughter, but instead the French fought their way back in a short time. Dieng had already missed two great chances, but was successful on his third attempt. The attacker fired hard from seventeen meters into the bottom corner: 2-1. Just before half time, the equalizer also fell, when Ofir Marciano hit a sharp cross from Mattéo Guendouzi back into the penalty area. Gerson took advantage of this, who hit an almost empty goal from about eight meters: 2-2.
Feyenoord opened the second half the same as the first: with a lot of pressure on Marseille’s rear. With success, because Dessers intercepted a weak pass from Duje Caleta-Car after six seconds, dodged Steve Mandanda’s outstretched leg and set De Kuip on fire again: 3-2. Feyenoord then had a difficult time and limited themselves more and more to defending, and needed a brilliant sliding from Tryell Malacia twenty minutes before the end to prevent Dieng from breaking through in the penalty area.
Dessers saw a sparse but promising attempt from the Rotterdam side being tapped out of the corner, but the French had bigger chances. William Saliba headed wide from close range, after which Dieng fired freely at Marciano’s feet in a new one-on-one situation. The Israeli goalkeeper tapped a shot from Dimitri Payet under the crossbar in the final phase, while Papa Gueye headed over from the ensuing corner. Substitute Alireza Jahanbakhsh broke through out of nowhere on the other side and should have made it 4-2, but shot very weakly at Mandanda’s foot.