After two years out of the game, and several more out of the spotlight, the Portuguese is realising the potential he showed as a young coach
Andre Villas-Boas well knows how quickly things can move in football.
Once considered the ‘next Jose Mourinho’ when he moved to Chelsea in 2011 as a 33-year-old, he lasted less than a season before Roman Abramovich’s axe swung, sending him on a career trajectory that has seen him since manage Tottenham, Zenit St Petersburg and Shanghai SIPG.
He spent two years out of the game before arriving in the Mediterranean port of Marseille. But, far from being washed up, he has returned to the game with renewed spirit and having apparently learned from a whirlwind first decade in management.
Before his signing in the summer, Marseille’s ‘Champions Project’ was considered something of a standing joke around France.
OM’s aim since Frank McCourt’s 2016 takeover was openly to duke it out with the best teams in Ligue 1 to challenge Paris Saint-Germain for honours, yet in the first three years all they could muster were two fifth-placed finishes and a fourth.
While there was the 2018 Europa League final to consider, much of the polish of that achievement was tarnished with the ease in which they were brushed aside by Atletico Madrid in the showpiece.
Now, though, there is a genuine belief that under Villas-Boas the bluster might finally be matched on the park, with Marseille lying second in Ligue 1, eight points behind leaders PSG and comfortably installed five clear of fourth-placed Bordeaux, who they face on Sunday.
It may not always have been achieved with great panache, as the supporters would no doubt wish, but having been starved of Champions League football for six years, the Provence giants are no longer fussy about how they return to Europe’s elite.
The 42-year-old Portuguese, though, has been forced into the pragmatic approach that seems to have brought the best out of his coaching brain.
Transfer funds have been virtually non-existent: the arrivals of Dario Benedetto from Boca Juniors and Valentin Rongier from Nantes were offset by the departures of Lucas Ocampos, Luiz Gustavo and Clinton N’Jie for identical money.
Moreover, he is working with a small first-team squad that has been hampered by the loss of Florian Thauvin, their best player, until February with ankle trouble.
To unlock the absolute maximum from this side, he has been forced to build a formidable team spirit, which is key to understanding his success since arriving in France.
Perhaps his influence on the squad was best summed up by left-back Jordan Amavi, who said this week of notoriously work-shy winger Dimitri Payet: “I’ve never seen him defend so much!”
Croatian defender Duja Caleta-Car added: “We all feel very comfortable with him. We’re all very relaxed and, in these conditions, we can do a job.”
Football-mad Marseille is one of the most unique jobs in France, with the coach and team constantly under pressure to perform. Crises can erupt from small incidents, yet Villas-Boas’ approach of fronting up to the media and offering honest answers has slowly won the respect of the fans and quickly won him the trust of his team, who he has regularly praised on social media.
With the wholehearted confidence of his players, he has been able to innovate and gamble with certain tactical choices and team selections. Highly-rated young defender Boubacar Kamara has been successfully shunted into midfield, pushing OM to home wins against Lille and Lyon, while two matches over the last week have displayed the flexibility of his ideas.
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At home against Brest, Marseille mustered 34 shots on goal – more than they had managed in any top-flight game in over six years. And, while they nearly blew the win, conceding an equaliser in the 88th minute, they managed to rally with Nemanja Radonjic firing a brilliant late winner – itself symbolic of a player finally finding his potential after a poor first 18 months at the club.
After a Mistral of attacking football against the Bretons, four days later against Angers they showed a very different side to their play at the home of the team that had the best home record in Ligue 1 to that point.
“They’re the team that has the ball the least in the league,” Villas-Boas explained after the match, having watched his side defeat the hosts 2-0 by doing exactly what Angers did not expect: give them possession freely.
“I really thought they’d do the opposite,” Angers boss Stephane Moulin, regarded as one of the shrewdest in France, admitted. “Villas-Boas has done very well to convince these excellent players to leave their opponents to have the ball.”
The efficiency with which Morgan Sanson and Payet gave Marseille the victory was emblematic of their season to date and particularly the five-game winning streak they find themselves on.
Ahead of Sunday’s clash with Bordeaux, Villas-Boas denies that the aim is to hunt down PSG.
“That’s not our fight,” he said. “We’ve got a clear objective and we’re going to stay focused on it. If we’re second in the end, that will be a very good season.”
Ten years’ experience in the game has taught Villas-Boas about how quickly things can change, but he has also learned how to fashion a successful side as he is amply displaying amid a renaissance in Marseille both for OM and for himself.