Marseille v Chelsea, Champions League group stage two, matchday three, Tuesday 29 February 2000

Gianluca Vialli’s Chelsea side had gone into the winter break in European competition in a healthy position following an impressive home win over Dutch side Feyenoord and a draw against tournament joint-favourites Lazio in Rome in the first two games of the second group stage. The structure of the Champions League was different 20 years ago compared with the current day.We were top of the group and a win on the south coast of France in the port city of Marseilles would move us close to a place in the quarter-finals at the first time of asking. The football club Olympique de Marseille had pedigree in the competition, as France’s first and still only winners of the trophy, but sitting 13th in the French League, this was not considered a vintage Marseille team, as indicated by their own supporters’ seeming lack of faith with the 60,000 Velodrome Stadium’s distinctive stands only one-third full for our visit.

And it was events involving the crowd that proved more memorable for many of the travelling Chelsea support than most of the action on the pitch that ‘Leap Day’ night.Those fans of the French club who were in the stadium created plenty of noise and atmosphere, especially the microphone-led chanting of the Yankee Nord group on the terrace around the corner from the away fan section. The mood of many Chelsea supporters there was not good anyway following a long incarceration in a shed without toilets shortly after entering the stadium site before the game, and unfortunately a few of the home supporters aimed missiles at them during the first half.An altercation with police and Marseille fans at the front of the away section led to a tear gas deployment which ultimately hit all the Chelsea fans as it drifted up the terrace, causing some distress.

On the pitch, the Chelsea team conceded a goal after only 15 minutes. Robert Pires was a name far less known in England then than it later would after he moved to Arsenal, but in 2000 he had a good reputation in France. Pires exploited space behind our left-back Jon Harley and from an angle he caught out goalkeeper Ed de Goey with a shot that clipped the inside of the near post and went in off the far one.We had been in good form leading up to the game with five straight wins preceding it and an unbeaten run of 13 games stretching back over two months. However on this occasion there was an under-par passing performance on a soggy pitch and no way back despite some chances created.

Marseille’s second-choice goalie Stephane Trevisan denied Tore Andre Flo with a good save but it was in the final 10 minutes when he was a real thorn in our side, excelling in keeping out efforts from substitute Chris Sutton and Gustavo Poyet.

Gianfranco Zola described the one from Poyet as among of the best saves he had ever seen and added: ‘Maybe in the best moment for us Marseille got the goal which was an unbelievable goal. You can’t do anything with it. He [Pires] has been very good at doing that.’

In the other group game, Feyenoord came from behind to beat Lazio away and move top of the group with Chelsea tied in second with the Italian side.‘The situation has got more complicated with Feyenoord’s victory in Rome,’ observed Blues manager Vialli. ‘We must now not blow our chances and this means beating a Marseille team that posed us a lot of problems.’The chance to do just that at Stamford Bridge would come only one week later.

Chelsea team v Marseille away: De Goey; Ferrer (Morris 80), Leboeuf, Desailly, Harley; Petrescu, Deschamps (Di Matteo 62), Wise (c), Poyet, Flo (Sutton 80), ZolaSubs not used: Cudicini, Lambourde, Thome, Ambrosetti

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