Charles Jackson
You wouldn’t move to Olympique de Marseille if you were looking for a quiet life, a quiet final stop on the way to a peaceful retirement in the south of France. The only European champion in Ligue 1 has no shortage of expectations and, as recent coaches Marcelino and Gennaro Gattuso can attest, failing to meet them tends to have quick repercussions. The pressure cooker of the Stade Velodrome, with an atmosphere that literally takes visitors’ breath away on European nights, makes or breaks the best.
If you had experienced the hardships on and off the field that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has endured over the past three years, you could take one look at the “fire” of the Velodrome, take ten steps back, turn on your heel and run in the opposite direction. Then again, you are not Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
“People are crazy here… but I’m crazy too,” he told CBS Sports ahead of Marseille’s Europa League semi-final clash against Atalanta on Thursday (see nationwide Europa League coverage). . Paramount+, CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network). “It’s a good mix.”
That certainly is. Aubameyang smiles as he reflects on a move that revitalized his career and brought one of European football’s most effervescent figures back into the spotlight. He could have easily been suppressed forever. Stripped of the Arsenal captaincy for too many disciplinary infractions in 2021, Aubameyang appeared to have at least landed on his feet at Barcelona. His form returned even though there were difficult issues in his personal life, robbers breaking his jaw when they broke into his property in August. At that time, Aubameyang was also caught up in the summer of ‘levers’, financial machinations at Camp Nou that meant a player with 11 goals in 17 La Liga games was pushed out the door to make room for new arrivals.
At least his former Borussia Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel was ready to trust in his talent by taking him back to London. Five days after Chelsea committed $12.8 million to give their manager a veteran striker he trusted, they fired Tuchel. His successor, Graham Potter, never showed the same faith in Aubameyang, while his employers destroyed the strategy of building around established stars, filling their dressing rooms beyond capacity with whatever young stars they could find. Aubameyang’s last two matches for Chelsea? Defeats to the rampant Arsenal he left behind. It was all enough to throw anyone off course.
“I just missed that hunger for a little while,” he says. “Obviously when I was at Chelsea I didn’t play much. You miss that a bit because you’re sad about the situation.”
Still, Aubameyang’s downfall was deeper. Having scored a league goal in early November, the 34-year-old was booed by the Velodrome when Gattuso held him to a 0-0 draw against Lille.
“When I arrived here, I knew that Marseille is the winger, always. It’s a very good experience for me. I had to look in the mirror and work harder and harder to bring back that light that is in me. what.
“When I saw people whistling me a little, I thought ‘Damn, I have to change this’, especially because my mother was at the stadium. I had to find a rhythm and that took a while, but when we arrived in December I felt good and in shape, I could be better and when they whistled me that made me want to completely change the situation.
In the 29 games since the Velodrome whistled his name, Aubameyang has won their affection and more. Those matches yielded 21 goals for the veteran striker, who took Marseille back to the top of Ligue 1’s mid-table and, crucially, to the Europa League semi-final against Atalanta. With the caveat that he has faced fiercer opposition in his spells in the Bundesliga and Premier League, Aubameyang is putting up numbers that approach the scourge of defenses in his heyday.
His 3.68 shots per 90 minutes in league games are his highest average since his last full season at Borussia Dortmund in 2016-17, his 0.59 non-penalty expected goals (npxG) a figure comparable to his first two campaigns in Arsenal colors. Since he was booed, those numbers have skyrocketed even further, more than four shots per 90, putting him in the kind of elite striking bracket he was in before anyone had even heard of Erling Haaland or Darwin Nunez. Since November 5, Aubameyang ranks 11th in Europe’s top five leagues in npxG per 90, 13th in shots and has more goals than Haaland, Victor Osimhen or Robert Lewandowski. All this and he equaled his season’s best assist tally of eight at the age of 23 at Saint-Etienne.
“Because I played for Barcelona”, he jokes.
His straight-line explosiveness may not be what it was in his 20s, but he still knows the way to the goal, especially when he’s in what to see. You’ll know this before you watch the clip above from their equalizer against Ajax in November, with Aubameyang advancing down the left, sliding past defenders who might as well not have been there before firing the ball towards the far post.
You’ve seen it more times than you can remember: from Arsenal against Liverpool in the Community Shield, from Fulham in the Premier League or from a long-range variant when Borussia Dortmund defeated Tottenham. Something takes over Aubameyang when he gets into that position. Since the start of 2020-21, he has hit shots from the inner left quadrant of the box worth 17.9 xG. He scored 23 goals, but there’s nothing really strange about that. It’s just the area where Aubameyang heats up.
Just like Arjen Robben interrupted, every defender must know what he is going to do. That doesn’t mean they can stop you.
“A lot of people know me for scoring that goal, from the left side, from the right side, from the far post”, he reflects. I would describe myself that way too. I love scoring those kinds of goals and I worked a lot on that when I was at Arsenal.
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“When I’m there, I’m just focused on, ‘OK, I’m going to get the ball to score that goal. That’s what comes to mind. I get the ball. I just go. I know I have to dribble past one or two guys. , but before the action starts I know that I’m going to shoot, with my right foot, at the far post, but it’s a matter of repetition.
Aubameyang has been particularly repetitive in the Europa League, with his 10 goals this season taking him four ahead of Radamel Falcao and becoming the top scorer in the competition’s history. Defeated finalist in 2019, he still has unfinished business in this competition and the visit of the winners of Liverpool in the quarter-finals does not scare him.
“It’s going to be a tough game,” he says, “I hope we can be ready. They will come [at us] all over the field, they love to press. I’ve seen their videos, the star of this team is the team. We have to face this.
“We played Lens on Sunday, they played quite similar. For sure, Atalanta are one step ahead, so we just have to improve our game.
“Will their intensity bring out the best in us and the Velodrome? I’m 100 percent sure. We know what to expect from them, the fans are ready to set the stadium on fire and we’re going to need that. Especially at this point in the season, you need has a lot of energy and needs to take that energy away from people, from the city, from everywhere.”
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It is this energy that seems to be fueling Aubameyang, a player who once seemed trapped in a vortex of bad plays, is now in a much more virtuous cycle: his goals ignite the Marseille fans, who in turn make the most of the game. him, the charismatic star so many supporters have fallen in love with over the last decade. This was not the easy path – Aubameyang is among the few who rejected the riches of the Saudi Arabian Professional League, not once but twice – and that makes everything even more rewarding.
“I knew it would be a difficult challenge, but at the same time here you can have an incredible experience because of the city, the people. They live for football in the city, that’s what I was missing. I was sure it was going to be difficult, I was lacking playing time, but I was ready to face this challenge, work hard and try to bring joy to this club”, he stated.
That mission could certainly already be accomplished if the season ends with Marseille lifting a European trophy. No less important, however, it appears that Aubameyang has also brought joy to himself. That’s a feat as worthy of celebration as any of his many, many goals.
How to watch and odds
- Date: Thursday, May 2 | Time: 3:00 p.m. ET
- Location: Velodrome – Marseille, France
- Live broadcast: Paramount+
- Chances: OM +160; Draw +150; Atalanta +200
