Marseille boss Roberto De Zerbi was not happy after the home Champions League defeat to Liverpool on Wednesday evening
Marseille boss Roberto De Zerbi speaks to the media after the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 league phase against Liverpool at Stade de Marseille on January 21 2026
Marseille boss Roberto De Zerbi speaks to the media after the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 league phase against Liverpool at Stade de Marseille on January 21 2026(Image: Stuart Franklin - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
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Roberto De Zerbi lamented the "silly" moments he believes cost his Marseille side as they tumbled to a heavy home Champions League defeat against Liverpool. The Reds earned a deserved 3-0 win at the Stade Velodrome on Wednesday night to put themselves in a strong position to qualify directly to the last 16 with a final opening stage game at home to Qarabag to come next week.
By contrast, Marseille must now win at Club Brugge to ensure they make the play-offs having slipped to 19th place in the table, just one point clear of those outside the cut-off point of 24th.
Dominik Szoboszlai opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time with a cheeky free-kick under the Marseille wall before Jeremie Frimpong forced an own goal by home goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli and substitute Cody Gakpo completed the scoring with the last kick of the match.
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And when asked what his biggest regret of the night was, Marseille boss De Zerbi said: "I don't like the word 'regret'. We played badly, we didn't play well.
"We conceded a silly goal from a free-kick. It's true, we were playing against Liverpool... but knowing that, we should have done much more, especially in the first half. We didn't know how to deal with Liverpool.
"We had opportunities to do better. We didn't take them. The attitude, the will, was there, but it's not enough against Liverpool.
"We also need to understand football, how to play the ball out from the back, make fewer misplaced passes, and show more personality.
"We already knew our opponent was stronger, but we could still do better."
De Zerbi believes Marseille would have fared better had they made greater use of France World Cup winner Benjamin Pavard and pointed the finger at the player himself for not making more of an impact.
"We didn't understand that the game revolved around Pavard," said the Marseille boss. "He himself didn't realise he was the solution. We lost silly possession because we didn't understand the flow of the game; we kept playing through the middle.
"Pavard could have scored in the first half; he found himself one-on-one with the keeper. We could have pushed forward more down the wings with Pavard and Murillo.
"Pavard can and should attack. And that's the problem: staying like that in the first half. Kondogbia needed to spread out to the right and Pavard needed to push forward more to put Liverpool under pressure.
"Mac Allister and Szoboszlai were constantly marking Kondogbia and Hojbjerg. We should have spread the ball wide to get it out of our own half. But we couldn't stop playing, so we kept playing through the middle. It annoyed me that we didn't read the game properly.
"After the break, the game opened up, and when you give Liverpool space, you're bound to suffer."