Greek Superleague champions Olympiakos Pireaus must beat Arsenal in Athens in a fortnight in their final game of the European Champions League group stages if they wish to progress to the next stage of the prestigious competition.
The Greek club kept its qualification hopes alive by defeating French club Marseille on Thursday. Marseille, the 1993 European champions, remain second in Group F on seven points with one game remaining after the substitute Giannis Fetfatzidis’s 82nd-minute strike. Olympiakos will host the group winners Arsenal in the last round while Marseille travel to the fourth-placed Borussia Dortmund. Fetfatzidis fired home with a low cross shot after Olympiakos beat the offside trap to give his team a deserved win. On a mild night in a half-empty Stade Velodrome, Marseille made a shaky start.
In the 10th minute, their defence was caught napping when Olof Mellberg headed home from a free-kick, only for the assistant referee to flag for offside.
The warning did not exactly spur the home side into action as Marseille failed to create a clearcut chance while the Greek side looked dangerous on the break. It took a couple of brilliant saves by Steve Mandanda to deny Kevin Mirallas and Jose Holebas in quick succession after a swift counterattack left the Marseille defence in disarray. Didier Deschamps’s side seemed rejuvenated after the restart although Olympiakos continued to threaten.
Mirallas once again beat the offside trap but was denied by Mandanda, who tipped away the Belgium striker’s low shot on the hour. Marseille had their best chance 20 minutes from time when the France midfielder Alou Diarra had a downward header blocked by Balasz Megyeri. The substitutes Andre-Pierre Gignac and Lucho Gonzalez did not help Marseille get any better up front as the hosts instead relied on ugly defending.
“We failed to make it simple in the first half. In the second half, they sat back and waited for us and got us on a counterattack,” the Marseille defender Souleymane Diawara told French TV channel Canal Plus. “We did not play a European Cup game, we played a friendly game. There was no aggression from our side. If we want to qualify we will have to show something else. If we play like tonight, we should not bother to travel to Dortmund.”