CN Marseille (FRA) v Genesys OSC-Budapest (HUN) 10-10
Last season Marseille handed two heavy defeats to OSC, the two sides were not on the same level in Budapest and in Marseille. This game was a totally different story, though. At the beginning, it looked like the same as Marseille buried two man-ups while OSC could barely create any danger. However, once they managed to break the ice, after 5:42 minutes, they added two more in quick succession to take a 2-3 lead after the opening quarter.
And this stunning turn of fortunes continued in the second, two more action goals followed, four minutes gone and OSC were 2-5 up. A penalty halted Marseille’s scoreless run after 9:05 minutes as Ugo Crousillat converted it and in 46 seconds the leftie netted another one, this time from a counter which pushed the game back to its ‘original’ track. Though OSC killed a man-down but soon another counter brought the French back to even with 49 seconds to go and they even had time for another one just 26 seconds later, another counter ended in a penalty and Crousillat made it 6-5.
This 4-0 rush froze the Hungarians who were unable to penetrate the hosts’ defence. Despite denying Marseille in two man-downs, they couldn’t get any closer to the French, what’s more, Crousillat netted his fourth from action, the only goal in the third which gave Marseille a 7-5 lead.
Then something similar happened to the OSC players what had galvanised the French in the second – they just needed a goal to leave all the bad memories behind. There were a lot as they were unable to score for 14:25 minutes but once they could find a net, thanks to Ferenc Salamon’s pinpointer, it freed them, and a flood ensued. Marton Toth’s magnificent backhander brought them back to even though in 15 seconds Andrija Prlainovic’s brilliant blast gave back the lead to Marseille. OSC killed another man-down and then Salamon, with some luck, hit another action goal from the left wing so it stood 8-8 with 3:10 to go. Not so long as the hosts got a man-up and Thomas Vernoux put it away from close range, however, Salamon was on fire, blasted a third one for 9-9 with 1:24 on the clock.
The French lost the ball and Toth sold his backhanded shot once more to net his third from the centre in the game – and as unbelievable as it was, OSC took the lead with 44 seconds to go. Still, Marseille got a last chance 25 seconds before the end, a man-up, it was doubled 12 seconds later and Alexandre Bouet finished off the 6 on 4 from the wing to save at least one point for the hosts in this extraordinary game.
How they saw it
Milos Scepanovic, coach, Marseille
“We wanted to win but everybody wants the same here, of course. We expected a really tough game, and I should stay the team played really well, even if at some stages OSC dominated. I’m not dissatisfied, I was happy with the game, with the intensity we produced. We had some difficulties towards the end of the first and early in the second, but I knew what we could expect from our opponents and from our players. At the end, this result is fair I think – in the second half we hold the result we wished for but couldn’t finish more extramen and that cost us the points.”
Daniel Varga, coach, OSC
“Yes, we could have won, we now have one point, but it could have also been zero. The level of my happiness depends on which quarter we consider as we produced very different levels of the game in the different quarters. All in all, we played a very good game against such a great team, and compared to our matches we had last season, I should say we managed to step onto another level today. What we need to do now is to keep this level in our next matches. Now we have a very long and intense six weeks ahead of us with a lot of important games, but at least we can say that the beginning of this ‘mini season’ was successful.”
