Tottenham finally qualified for the Champions League after 2020. The club met the Italian football club, Marseille at Tottenham’s home stadium today. Tottenham is overall placed in the good group. Tottenham was placed in pot 2 and the group’s other clubs, Eintracht Frankfurt was the weakest team in pot 1, and sporting was the other weakest team in pot 3 as well. However, Marseille was the strongest club in pot 4.
Even though Marseille was placed in the pot 4, they are not an easy club to against. The club is ranked 2nd in the Ligue 1 with 5 won and 1 drawn, and their goal against is only 3 which is higher than Paris Saint-Germain with 4 GA. They have super great defensive stats even though they don’t just focus on defending. Marseille is the toughest club to Tottenham in the group and Marseille was the same as well. Both clubs would win today, but Tottenham got the 3 points today with Richarlison’s multi-goals.
Line-ups:
Tottenham came out with a 3-4-2-1 formation. Perisic was placed in the first team instead of Sessegnon.
Marseille is also playing 3 backs with a 3-4-2-1 formation. Marseille’s ace striker, Alexis Sanchez was absent because he received a penalty in the last Champions League game when he played in Inter. As you see their line-up, there were many former Arsenal players, so people said it is a North London rival game.
First half game:
In the first half-time game, Marseille played better than Tottenham. Tottenham’s build-up was pretty inaccurate. Tottenham’s succeed pass rate was 81% verse 91% of Marseille. Marseille’s ball possession, total shots, and shots on target were even higher than Tottenham’s. Tottenham had zero shot on target by the way. If Sanchez could play today, Tottenham would get scored at least one goal in the first half-time.
Second half game:
At 47 minutes, Heung Min Son has been involved a critical point in this game. Son and Kane played one-two pass in the center of a field and Son was running in front of Marseille’s defender, Mbemba, and Kane gave him a quality through the pass. Son was faster than Mbemba so Mbemba had to tackle him from behind. It was too dangerous so the referee decided to send him out with a direct red card.
Since Marseille had only 10 players, Tottenham overwhelmed the game. However, Marseille was focusing on defending, so Tottenham couldn’t break their wall. Conte decided to send Kulusevski in instead of Emerson at 61 minutes to focus on attacking.
At 76 minutes, Richarlison finally got the first goal with his head. Perisic was dribbling in the edge of the left box and passed out Marseille’s defender, then delivered a beautiful cross to Richarlison who was standing alone. Other defenders were focusing on Kane. Richarlison was easy to head the ball to the net after being left unmarked.
At 81 minutes, Richarlison scored his second-header goal! It started with Perisic’s cross from the right corner and the ball was rebounded from Marseille’s defender. The ball fall to Hojbjerg and he delivered another beautiful cross to Richarlison who showed fine header skill.
Richarlison is scoring 2 goals and 2 assists in Tottenham. The club spent $60m for him and has no regret so far.
Ratings:
Of course, today’s the player of the match was Richarlison. Perisic and Hojbjerg’s rating was also high who assisted the both Richarlison’s header goals.
While I was watching the first half game, I thought Tottenham would draw or lose today. However, Mbemba’s red card was a too critical point. Son didn’t make any attacking points, but he made the very big point today.
Tottenham’s next game is Man City this weekend and Sporting the next weekday. Tottenham is not losing in the last 7 games. Man City is also not losing in the last 7 games. Therefore, the unloosing clubs playing this weekend. Tottenham even won twice against Man City which was the only team the last season.
Do you expect Tottenham would win again?
I don’t think it would be easy because Man City signed a monster striker, Haaland. I guess Tottenham’s defenders could not win against Haaland…
What do you think?!
Thank you for reading:)