Pirès warns OM after three defeats: "I don't wish on them what we lived through in 1999-2000"

Three defeats in four matches, a 12th-place finish and a chaotic summer transfer window: OM has spiralled into crisis after a promising start against Strasbourg (4-0). Bruno Genesio’s side successively lost to Monaco (2-0), Paris FC (3-2) and Rennes (1-0) on Friday, accumulating just three points in the Ligue 1 standings.

This alarming start to the season prompted Robert Pirès to speak out. The 1998 World Cup winner, who wore the Marseille shirt for two seasons, acknowledged that the club had “made a poor start with a transfer window full of turbulence”, with Marseille losing several key players over the summer without signing a single replacement.

The former midfielder is nonetheless calling on the players to react. “It’s a club that perhaps needs this positive or negative excitement. I hope the players show some rebellion. And if they need to chase a European place, they must chase it because whatever happens it’s important,” he said.

But it is above all a personal memory that haunts Pirès. The 1999-2000 season, which he lived through firsthand, remains an open wound. “Laurent Blanc’s departure shook our team. We struggled to recover from it. Proof of that: we played our relegation battle on goal difference against Nancy,” he recalls. That year, OM, managed successively by Rolland Courbis and then Bernard Casoni, won just nine matches for ten defeats and fifteen draws, finishing 15th in Division 1 and narrowly avoiding the drop.

“I don’t wish on the players or OM to experience what we lived through in 1999-2000,” he warns, while highlighting the particular intensity of the Phocaean club: “When things aren’t going well, the supporters make it clear. It was hot, sometimes scorching with them, but the moment you play for this club, you know what you’re getting into.”