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 wonderful shirt comes to you in what can only be described as excellent condition! The felt sponsor, vinyl stripes down the sleeves and respective pieces of embroidery are flawless, while the netting on the back of the shirt only reports the smallest of tears that is barely noticeable!

DIMENSIONS:

Size: Small

Pit to Pit Measurement: 19 inches

Shirt Length: 28 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:

After the 2003-04 home shirt was almost devoid of any of the blue accents or motifs that a Marseille home shirt is normally associated with, the 2004-05 seaoson brought it back in a big way as the old and new came together in this majestic football shirt! Using their shiny and glossy template with deep v-neck cut; Adidas would reintroduce the big blue cross which was last seen on the 2000-01 home shirt to devastating effect! This season’s offering of shirts would also be the first to use the new Neuf Telecom branding. This shirt would be worn as OM used 3 managers en route to a 5^th place finish where they only missed on 4^th place due to the extra 2 goals that Rennes scored! This would be the first home shirt to be worn by the likes of: Samir Nasri, Taye Taiwo, Peguy Luyindula, Frederic Dehu, and for the ill-fated half season of Bixente Lizarazu’s return to French football before he returned to Bayern Munich mid-way through the season!         

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