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Pablo Longoria ranted in front of reporters on Tuesday. The president of Olympique de Marseille railed on the lack of performance of the Bouches-du-Rhône club’s training center.
“We don’t have any and that’s unacceptable”
At a press conference on Tuesday, Pablo Longoria made the rounds of the news of Olympique de Marseille. The internal upheavals, the future of Igor Tudor, the winter transfer window… The Spanish leader did not evade any subject. Facing his audience, the boss of the Bouches-du-Rhône club also spoke on a much less often mentioned debate, that of the training center. And the least we can say is that the 36-year-old president has not been kind on this issue, the fault of a lack of results at the various lower levels and the absence of young players within of the first team.
“For the academy, we have to look beyond the results in the Youth League. I’m not happy with the results but we had a good level in the last two Youth League games. The training center must be positioned. We had a poorly performing center in recent years. It’s a fan’s dream to see players from the academy in the first team. We have none and that is unacceptable. In a situation of failure, you have to make changes. We tried to have a collective approach. We have to recruit players locally. Players in the region need to develop. I don’t understand why all this time we haven’t been able to release players. What are we doing differently than Real Sociedad, which has 14 players from its academy in the first team? It is a question of requirement. It is necessary to recruit locally and increase ten times the level of requirement. I don’t like comfort.”