Adrien Rabiot, 30, midfielder for Olympique de Marseille, has outlined his ambitions for the coming season. In an interview with La Provence, he explicitly mentioned OM’s desire to compete with Paris Saint-Germain and qualify for the Champions League again, while acknowledging the economic gap between the two clubs.
Rabiot: “We can achieve great things”
“We can achieve great things. The goal? It’s to have a great season and qualify for the Champions League again (…) Olympique de Marseille should be there every year. That goal is clear: to do our best and be able to compete with PSG.
Rabiot: “I think we can already try to get as close as possible to Paris.”
I think anything is possible with willpower, determination, and passion, he added. There is obviously a gap between PSG’s colossal budget and that of OM, but in football, that’s not everything. I think we can already try to get as close as possible to Paris. I’m not going to make big speeches and tell tall tales, but the goal is precisely to reduce the gap between them and us.”
For several decades, Olympique de Marseille has regularly fed the press and media with its grand ambitions before each season, loudly proclaiming its goals of finishing on the podium and qualifying for the Champions League. However, the club’s history is full of examples where promises and rhetoric have fallen far short of results on the field. Whether due to a lack of stability, poor results, or the choices of leaders who get carried away with recruiting or announcing “exemplary projects,” OM often struggles to keep its seasonal commitments, leaving fans and observers disappointed.
This repetitive pattern—of enthusiastic statements and announcements of a “season of renewal”—contrasts with the club’s sporting reality, which, despite a few flashes of brilliance and undeniable popular fervor, fails to embody a lasting rivalry with Paris Saint-Germain due to a lack of consistency and results. For Ligue 1 and even for PSG, the absence of a true perennial competitor like Marseille detracts from the appeal and intensity of the championship. An OM that lives up to its words would not only be beneficial for national competitiveness but would also enhance the prestige of the duels with Paris, restoring meaning to the myth of France’s “Classique,” which has been too often unbalanced in recent years.
