Rebellion, ritiros & Waddle - 'Ultra' De Zerbi's year at Marseille

"When I was aged 13-14, in the AC Milan youth academy, my coach told me to start following Marseille and Chris Waddle," Roberto de Zerbi discreetly disclosed after the French side's final game of the season.

"That's when I fell in love with Marseille. I started following the club because of Waddle." The England winger would win three Ligue 1 titles with Les Phoceens and help them reach the 1991 European Cup final.

De Zerbi's revelation followed a season full of lively - and at times fiery - news conferences at the Velodrome and the La Commanderie training ground. The Italian found in 's oldest city something that mirrored his past and his own temperament.

"The city of Marseille and the club of Marseille are similar to me in a way. I was looking for an environment that could make me dream," said the former Brighton boss in early February.

De Zerbi is a natural fit for the heat at Olympique de Marseille. His football demands conviction, and so does the city. As local poet Jean-Claude Izzo once wrote: "Here, you have to take sides. Be ionate. Be for, be against. Just be, intensely."

At the end of the season the Italian was caught up in jubilant celebrations, waving a flare with ers that had greeted the Marseille squad at 4am at Provence Airport. "I was born an ultra," De Zerbi exclaimed to DAZN only weeks before.

It was not a title win - but finishing second in Ligue 1 and qualifying for the Champions League felt nonetheless dramatic.

The appointment of the ionate Italian was viewed as an "impossible dream" by club president Pablo Longoria when he made a call last summer after De Zerbi departed Brighton.

That dream teetered on the edge of chaos several times this season, testing the tactical and emotional limits of one of the most promising coaches of the past decade.

"Marseille has always been the port of exiles... Here, anyone who arrives one day at the port is inevitably at home," Izzo also wrote about Marseille.

After an eighth-placed finish last season, the club kicked off a radical overhaul - welcoming an eclectic collection of misfits and experienced players attracted by De Zerbi's new project. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Neal Maupay and Adrien Rabiot all arrived citing De Zerbi as a factor.

English pair Jonathan Rowe and Mason Greenwood ed the Anglophone contingent at the club along with Canada international Derek Cornelius.

"The big difference was Roberto de Zerbi calling me out of the blue. I was a bit taken aback by it because it's the first time a manager has gone out of his way to call me and say he wants me," former Norwich winger Rowe told BBC Sport.

"The coach has been a bit more intricate with the details: your body shape, how you go into games, how you think and stay focused in a game. There's a lot of information to take in."

"He's very demanding, one of the best coaches in the world. He's one of the reasons why I came here," added Greenwood before the final game of the season. "We have a great relationship and he puts me in the best position so that I can express myself.

"We've also had to learn when to be patient, when to play a bit quicker when we have a lot of the ball and break down defences. So he's taught me a lot about how to play my game."

Greenwood ed the club from Manchester United last summer in a deal worth up to 31.6m euros (£26.6m). Serious charges against him, including attempted rape and assault, were dropped in February 2023.

"We took the decision internally. OK, there was some opposition, that was objective," said Marseille club president Longoria in September. "But at the same time that gave us power to maybe not investigate, because I'm not a judge, but to use all the information to make the best decision, which I think we did."

Greenwood scored twice on his Ligue 1 debut in a 5-1 win over Brest and went on to finish with 21 goals, breaking the record of the most goals in a debut season for a Marseille player in the 21st century, ahead of Bafetimbi Gomis (20) and Didier Drogba (19).

His goals won 16 additional points for the club - the highest of any player in Ligue 1 this season, according to Opta.

Marseille's ability for attacking explosivity on the pitch under De Zerbi was abundant from the start of the season. Les Olympiens broke several goalscoring and possession records, scoring 74 goals in 34 games this season, with only an all-conquering Paris St-Germain side netting more in Ligue 1.

Yet after a run of five losses in seven games, the season would take a turn for the surreal. Following defeat by Reims in March, a report from French newspaper L'Equipe alluded to tensions arising between De Zerbi and his players - going as far to suggest a 'mutiny' had taken place.

De Zerbi hit back: "Some people made me out to be a criminal. It's not fair. I'm a good person. My mum called me this morning and asked: 'What did you do">