On May 21,1940, Olympique Marseille, the grand football club of the French Mediterranean, played a domestic cup tie against nearby Antibes.
This was wartime in Europe and across much of the rest of the world. So OM, as they are known, recruited players as best they could. Some were true amateurs, some serving in the military at the time. That was the case for one of the goalscorers in their eventual 9-0 win.
He was Ahmed Ben Bella and if this, a minor footnote of Ben Bella’s having worn the OM jersey briefly 85 years ago, makes up a tiny part of his epic life story, it was, by the accounts of those who spoke to him about it, something he felt very proud of.
He was a football lover and talented enough that OM talked to him about a possible professional career with them.
But Ben Bella had bigger stories to write. He would be decorated for his service in Second World War. He would be imprisoned in French-occupied Algeria. In 1962, he would become the first president of the Algeria he had fought to liberate.
The anecdote of Ben Bella’s OM adventure has had a few retellings over recent weeks, because it’s emblematic of the city of Marseille’s strong bonds with Algeria and a reminder of the long link between the city’s most celebrated sporting institution and the neighbour across the sea.
Marseille is sometimes casually referred to as Algeria’s 59th wilaya – or district – so sizeable is the Algerian diaspora in the city and its surrounds.
It’s a connection felt and heard viscerally at OM’s Velodrome arena on a match day, where Algerian flags are worn and waved, as are the flags of Morocco and Tunisia and where you can sometimes hear “One, two, three … Algerie!” being chanted.
And on the pitch, OM have perhaps never looked as strongly Algerian as they do now.
In the winter transfer window, the club made significant signings to boost an already buoyant season. They included a new striker to don the number nine jersey, Amine Gouiri, recruited from Rennes; and a midfield player with champion credentials, Ismael Bennacer, on loan with an option to buy, from AC Milan.
Both are senior Algeria internationals, Gouiri the leading scorer for the Fennecs – the national team – in their qualifying campaign for this year’s Africa Cup of Nations, Bennacer the Player of the Tournament when Algeria last won an Afcon in 2019.
Their arrival, in tandem, was bound to carry a special resonance. But it also addresses a curious gap in OM’s history, at least after Ben Bella had moved on to more important things. The fact is OM has not represented its Algerian community very conspicuously, at least in its senior team, through the club’s rollercoaster history.
One of the sport’s greats, Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants to France, grew up in Marseille and supported OM but his career trajectory bypassed the club.
Samir Nasri, a gifted midfielder of Algerian heritage, came through the club’s youth system and was a precious star for OM in the early 2000s before building a career in English club football and, like Zidane, for his native France.
Some notable Algeria internationals, like Karim Ziani and Djamel Belmadi – later the Afcon-winning national head coach – had spells playing for OM, but the Gouiri-Bennacer axis represents something more stellar. It taps directly into a broad, if latent, fan base, too.
“There are already a lot of Algerians who support this club,” said Bennacer on signing. “But as Algerians tend to back all our country’s international players, there will now be a few more.”
Bennacer grew up with an affection for OM. He was born in Arles, an hour’s drive from Marseille, the son of Moroccan and Algerian parents. He had the option of playing for either country, or for France.
He chose Algeria and, but for injury, would have accumulated more than his 50 caps so far. Fit and in form, he can dominate a midfield, defensively diligent off the ball and creative with it.
He made an immense impact at the 2019 Afcon, when Algeria triumphed in Egypt, aged only 21. He would later be a major driver behind Milan’s 2021-22 Serie A title.
In his short time so far at OM, he’s been snapping into tackles and making his way up the rankings in various of the Ligue 1 metrics that best gauge a midfield player’s influence.
He’s just behind the brilliant Vitinha, of Paris Saint-Germain for the best carrying distances – forward runs in possession – per 90 minutes.
“He’s played very well since coming in,” said Roberto De Zerbi, the OM head coach, conscious that, at Milan for the first half of the season, injury had kept Bennacer out of action for a long period.
Gouiri, born near Lyon in France and capped by his native country at most age-group levels before committing to the Algeria of his heritage, has made an even more emphatic start to his OM career.
The 25-year-old, far from finding the Marseille number nine shirt a burden as some in the past have, had spent just three minutes parading it on the Velodrome pitch when, off the bench for his debut, he registered his first assist for OM, setting up a Mason Greenwood equaliser on the way to a 3-2 Marseille win over Olympique Lyonnais.
On his first OM start, at Angers, he set up both goals in a 2-0 win. His full home debut featured two Gouiri goals in a comfortable victory over Saint-Etienne. His next OM goal broke a stubborn deadlock in the 2-0 win against Nantes.
It all meant Gouiri being given the Ligue 1 Player of the Month award for February, ahead of the in-form PSG players Ousmane Dembele and Achraf Hakimi.
It is to Paris that OM go this weekend, for the meeting of the league’s top clubs. PSG – fresh from eliminating Liverpool from the Uefa Champions League – and their nearest chasers, Marseille – although the gap at the top is so wide, at 16 points with nine fixtures left, that nobody imagines Paris not finishing the season with their fourth successive Ligue 1 title.
What counts for OM is re-establishing themselves, medium-term, as PSG’s leading challenger within France. And PSG-Marseille is the country’s biggest fixture.
It will be shown live in various cinemas around France on Sunday evening. And in Algeria, across the water from Marseille, interest will likely spike higher than usual – because of the two star Fennecs playing in their first ever ‘classique’.
