Marseille takes full advantage of blunder and red card from Sporting goalkeeper Adán


Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at 9:00 PM• Noel Korteweg • Last update: 21:04

Olympique Marseille settled quite easily with Sporting Portugal in Group D of the Champions League on Tuesday evening. The French won 4-1 at home and therefore booked the first Champions League victory of the season. After the lost matches against Tottenham Hotspur (2-0) and Eintracht Frankfurt (0-1), the team of trainer Igor Tudor is now finally off zero. Sporting goalkeeper Antonio Adán played an extremely unfortunate lead role in Stade Vélodrome.

The French started with many newcomers, including Pau López, Jordan Veretout, Jonathan Clauss, Eric Bailly, Chancel Mbemba and Alexis Sánchez, in the starting line-up. The latter came over on a free transfer from Internazionale this summer and already scored four times in eight games for Marseille before Tuesday evening. On Sporting’s side, Jeremiah St. Juste was allowed to start from the kick-off. The defender, who has a past in the Netherlands with sc Heerenveen and Feyenoord, is mainly on the bench with the team of trainer Rúben Amorim.

It was Barcelona mercenary Francisco Trincão who opened the score for the Portuguese after fifty seconds. The defense of Marseille did not catch the attacker pulling in from the wing, allowing Trincão to hit the far corner: 0-1. It was the second fastest goal against a French team in the Champions League ever. After more than ten minutes, the home team came alongside via Sánchez, who could take advantage of the inattentive Adán. Sporting’s goalkeeper took too long to defend and shot the ball against the Chilean, who with some luck made the 1-1. Just three minutes later, Marseille took the lead thanks to Amine Harit. The attacking midfielder cleverly nodded an early cross from Clauss past Adán, who was not well positioned: 2-1.

Shortly afterwards, the Spanish goalkeeper’s nightmare became complete after he was sent off with a red card. Adán saw no other option than to hit a long ball from Marseille goalkeeper López a few meters outside the box, which logically did not leave referee Davide Massa unpunished. Marcus Edwards then had to make way for second goalkeeper Franco Israel. The Uruguayan keeper also made a mistake shortly after his substitute. Israel came out of his goal too late on a corner from Harit, which Leonardo Balerdi took advantage of and headed in: 3-1. Amorim then intervened hard at Sporting at halftime and used his remaining four substitutions in one go. Marseille, which took some gas in the second company, didn’t run into problems again and even extended the lead to 4-1. Mbemba took the last hit.