Marseille Passport Criticism Claims Questioned As De Zerbi Comments After Lens Win

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Marseille’s 3-1 Ligue 1 victory over Lens kept the club firmly in the title and Champions League conversation, yet Roberto De Zerbi argued the reaction in France stayed harsher than the performance merited, suggesting criticism of the team, and of De Zerbi personally, is influenced by De Zerbi’s nationality.

Lens entered the match on a 10-game winning run in all competitions, their longest sequence in club history, and a win at Stade Velodrome would have taken Lens back above Paris Saint-Germain, but the visitors’ momentum broke as Marseille struck twice in the opening 13 minutes and controlled most of the key moments.

Marseille’s attacking record in Ligue 1 continues to grow, with the team now on 44 league goals after 19 matches, matching the club’s 1970-71 return over the same span, while the current goal difference of +24 sits behind only the 1948-49 tally of +27 and the 1970-71 figure of +25 for this stage of a top-flight season.

Amine Gouiri opened the scoring and later added a second, while Ethan Nwaneri struck Marseille’s other goal after joining on loan from Arsenal earlier in the week, and that finish made Nwaneri the 19th different scorer for Marseille in all competitions this season, a mark matched only by Paris Saint-Germain, Eintracht Frankfurt and Chelsea across Europe’s top five leagues.

Although Marseille’s early pressure defined the contest, the expected goals numbers stayed almost level, with Marseille producing 1.0 xG from 10 shots while Lens generated 1.01 xG from seven attempts, and the hosts went 2-0 ahead faster than in any Ligue 1 match since scoring twice in nine minutes against Lorient in December 2023, a fixture Marseille won 4-2.

Lens responded after the interval through Rayan Fofana, but the deficit proved too wide, and the 3-1 result left Marseille third in Ligue 1, still behind Lens in the standings yet closing the gap and strengthening the club’s push towards the Champions League knockout-round play-offs, which Marseille have not reached for several seasons.

Roberto De Zerbi underlined the difficulty of facing Lens while insisting the margin could have been even larger, saying: "We won against a very strong team. They deserve to be ahead of us in the table. They have strong players who run a lot, De Zerbi said. But we could have won by a bigger margin. The new signings have settled in well."

De Zerbi also discussed Marseille’s relationship with the French media and hinted that De Zerbi’s Italian background shapes some opinions, stating: "I've become attached to Marseille because it's a special city. We can be criticised. Many write in good faith, but some write in bad faith, the Italian said. And for some, my passport changes a lot of things. Some think they're the bosses. I only have one boss, and that's [owner] Frank McCourt. It's fair for you [the media] to write what you want, and it's fair for me to respond how I want, too. It's still a long way to go. We have to play every game this way. If we don't play like this all the time, the criticism will be deserved."

Attention now shifts from Ligue 1 to Europe, as Marseille prepare for a Champions League meeting with Club Brugge on Wednesday, a tie De Zerbi framed as a chance to hit a milestone, saying: "Now, we're preparing for Wednesday's match to try and take OM where it hasn't been in the last 15 years."