And then suddenly, an ovation. For just over a few minutes, the midfielder had been warming up behind the Bastia goal. Then Eric Gerets decided to bring him on with twenty minutes still to go. Hatem Ben Arfa has now made his debut for OM. And if you take into account the number of times his name has been mentioned over the last week in the papers, this first appearance in a Marseille shirt would naturally add something to the second friendly game of pre-season. We will remember, a player finding his feet, some good interplay and a great run towards the end of the match, only stopped by a foul as he bore down on goal, from this match.
For the rest, before that, OM went through the same start to the match as they did against Istres. Despite the heat, this cold shower did nothing to please the supporters who were mainly there to support OM.
The ever young Pierre-Yves André, going through behind the defence, got to the ball before the advancing Rudy Riou. Ten minutes later, OM obtained a penalty for a foul on Krstic. Cissé scored with a powerful effort. But, again, like against Istres last Wednesday, OM conceded straight after the following kick-off. They shouldn’t have. This goal should never have been marked up on the scoreboard of the Parc des Sports of Avignon. Barthélemy, the goalscorer, was a mile offside.
Slightly annoyed by the events of a match that they no longer controled, Marseille conceded a third goal in the 34th minute after an error from Renato Civelli. The Argentinian wanted to play the ball back to his keeper, but the poacher André stuck his foot out and put the ball past Riou to general disbelief. Happily, just afterwards, Bolo Zenden went some way to wiping out the bad memory scoring a magnificent freekick which flew into the top corner (2-3).
Some slight modifications to the defence, and the entries of Cheyrou and Niang kicked off the second half. The Senegal international put his mark onto the game. He then put the Bastia keeper to work.
He then, intelligently, deviated the ball for Arrache who went on to score the equaliser just fifteen minutes from full time. A draw that was amply merited despite a few dangerous attacking movements from Bastia.