Marseille defender Chancel Mbemba has revealed that he and his teammates didn't realise that a draw with Tottenham would've secured them a place in the Europa League.
The French side dramatically crashed out of the Champions League on Tuesday, as Tottenham pulled off a gutsy 2-1 win at a raucous Stade Velodrome. Ex- Newcastle centre-back Mbemba had given Marseille the lead on the brink of half-time, only for Clement Lenglet to put Spurs back on level terms shortly after the break.
A 1-1 draw would've still been a decent consolation for the Ligue 1 giants due the other result in Group D going in their favour. By the time Marseille entered the dying embers of their clash with Tottenham and were going all out for a winning goal, Eintracht Frankfurt had already beaten Sporting Lisbon 2-1 in Portugal, which put Marseille third and on course for a place in the Europa League last 32.
However, the message evidently wasn't received by Igor Tudor's side, as they continued pushing in gung-ho fashion and eventually allowed Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg to grab a 95th-minute winner for Spurs on the counter attack. Despite Tudor even encroaching onto the pitch in a desperate bid to tell his players to stay back, it's Sporting who'll now compete in Europe's second-rate competition come February, and it left Mbemebe and Co. devastated.
"On the bench, they knew what was going on with Sporting. For us, there was a lack of communication," the 28-year-old DR Congo international explained post-match, via Get Football News France. "Football is like that. We dominated in the first half. And then, in the second half, it was Tottenham… We had to stay together to manage our game well. That's what the little details are about… That's football, but it hurts a lot."
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Marseille had indeed dominated the match from the first minute before allowing Tottenham to peg them back in the second period. Mbemba caught Spurs off guard in first-half added time to convert a quickly-taken corner kick, as Antonio Conte's men looked to be in for a nightmare in the south of France.
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Having lost star Heung-min Son to a sickening head injury early in the game, Tottenham needed Lenglet to rise highest from their own set-piece to get themselves level, as they continued to defend doggedly - much thanks to Man of the Match goalkeeper Hugo Lloris - until Hojbjerg emphatically clinched the win to send Spurs top of the group after being third just an hour earlier.
Marseille manager Tudor, whose side finished rock bottom of Group D despite picking up a commendable six points, claims that his players "didn't hear" his instructions to stop pushing for a winner, blaming the noise inside their rocking home stadium.
"They didn't hear because there was so much noise," the OM boss told RMC Sport. "I told them to stay back, not to push on, but they didn't hear. There was confusion in the last minute. It wasn't about results, it was about telling them to stay put, not to go all up."
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