THE VITALS:

Team: Olympique de Marseille (Marseille)

Brand: Adidas

Era: 2004-05 (Used for the 2004-05 Ligue 1 season)

Name/Number: -

CONDITION: EXCELLENT

This rare shirt comes to you in excellent condition, with the felt sponsor, vinyl 3-stripes, Adidas embroidery, club crest and shirt material looking nothing short of immaculate; I would be hard pressed to find a better version of this shirt that is circulation!

DIMENSIONS:

Size: Small

Pit to Pit Measurement: 20 inches

Shirt Length: 28.5 inches

Made by Adidas in their ‘ClimaCool’ range of shirts which they introduced in 2004; this shirt, although is a size small, may be better suited to a size medium, as per the standard of Adidas’ fits in the 2000’s.

DESCRIPTION:

As the home shirt drew upon the city of Marseille’s coat of arms and the club’s traditional colours, the away shirt broke free from the mould as Adidas combined their iconic ghost stripe template with the colours of navy and azure blue to devastating effect to create Marseille’s away shirt for the 2004-05 season! For the first time, ‘OM’s alternate colours utilised stripes, while the subtle changes of blue between the stripes and the sleeves and side panels further add to the legend of this fine shirt.    

THE SEASON:

A 7^th place Ligue 1 finish, a mid-season managerial switch, the brilliance of Didier Drogba and a UEFA Cup Final place was the story of Marseille’s 2003-04 season with Jose Anigo looking to plot an up-turn in Mars’ fortunes in 2004-05.

Drogba’s fine form was always going to put him in the shop window, and it would be Chelsea who would part way with £24 million to secure the services of the Ivorian forward, just one year after joining Marseille from Guingamp. Mido would also trade the Velodrome for new pastures as he moved to AS Roma, while Mathieu Flamini became the latest Frenchman to join compatriot – Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, also after just one season in the first team. Camel Meriem’s loan from Bordeaux was not made permanent either, while Vedran Runje and Cedric Carrasso also moved in the close season.

The Drogba funds would be used as: Taye Taiwo, Benoit Pedretti, Peguy Luyindala, Frederic Dehu, Habib Bamogo, Eduardo Costa, Bruno Cheyrou, Bixente Lizarazu and Fabien Barthez were signed!

The new campaign started brightly as Anigo’s side recorded back to back wins to start the season, however, wins in 2004 would be hard to come by as they mustered just a further 6 wins in their following 17 games before the year ended. Despite just 8 wins after 19 rounds of play, Marseille would go into 2005 sitting in 5^th place with 29 points and only 3 points adrift of Auxerre who were in 3^rd with Philippe Troussier having been brought in as the club’s new manager in November 2004!

Following the winter break, there would be an upturn in the club’s form, as they won 6 of their opening 7 league games in 2005, where a only a defeat to Sochaux on January 25^th blemishing the run! The last of those 6 wins was the 1-0 defeat of Bastia on February 19^th, and with league leaders Lyon being held by Monaco that weekend; Marseille had created a gap of just 6 points between themselves and the champions! Sadly for OM, the season would collapse spectacularly as they would win just 1 more game all season; and they would end the campaign having gone winless in each of their last 9 games of the season and would have to settle for a 5^th place finish. If their misery wasn’t compounded enough, they would only be denied by 4^th place by Rennes due to Rennes scoring twice more goals than Marseille!

Like the previous season, the domestic cup competitions were no source of respite either as they would embarrassingly fall in the First Round of the Coupe de France and then in the Round of 32 in the Coupe de la Ligue.

The notable players that season were:

Peguy Luyindula, Steve Marlet, Karim Dahou, Koke, Habib Bamogo, Brahim Hemdani, Koji Nakate, Bruno Cheyrou, Salomon Olembe, Sylvain N’Diaye, Samir Nasri, Laurent Batiles, Eduardo Costa, Benoit Pedretti, Habib Beye, Bixente Lizarazu, Abdoulaye Meite, Philippe Christanval, Taye Taiwo, Fabien Barthez