Marseille, Caen and Ligue 1's game of the season
February 28th, 2025by Mohamed
On the basis of it, when you put the phrases "Marseille vs. Caen" and "game of the season" together, you usually have to insert something that illustrates how unlikely a pairing the two would make from the outside looking in. Caen, one of the clubs to be promoted from last season (Brendán wrote a great piece on this very website about Caen if you want to get to know them more) isn't one of the teams you would think of when you think an instant but when you dig deeper, it's actually more shocking that Caen aren't more regularly featured in these type of matches. Caen are 4th in the league in goals scored at 42 and are tied with Toulouse for the third most goals conceded at 40. They're tied for 5th in shots per game and have the third most shots in open play. Caen also concede the most shots per game, and have the worst pseudo expected goal defense in Ligue 1 this season. Combine that with a Marseille attack that, dormant or not, still possess very high end attacking talent and you have the makings of something special.
However even the most optimistic of Ligue 1 fans couldn't have expected what the two sides produced last night. Ligue 1 on the whole has declined significantly in the last 5-10 years and for the good things it still possess (namely their insane ability to churn out quality players from their academies) goal scoring on the whole isn't one. In the top European leagues, Ligue 1 has the least amount of goals scored per game.
Which makes games like the one we saw between these two clubs even more special. This was a true barnburner, where defense was a complete disregard for both sides. Marseille love to create little intricate one-two combinations that split apart defense in their 4-2-3-1 formation. But Marseille added the twist of having the formation become a near 4-6-0 to increase their attacking strength. Andre Ayew played as a holding midfielder with Imbula as his double pivot partner. Usually it's Alaixys Romao partnered with Imbula to give Marseille some semblance of a defensive solidarity.
It was a very risky proposition, but considering Marseille's recent inability to create high grade chances, it was worth a shot defensive risks aside. It worked offensively. Marseille had 21 shots , nine on target. Those were the type of numbers the club produced when they were on their scoring tear earlier in the season. The first half in particular was a dominant attacking display from Marseille. They set up camp in Caen's own end for the majority of the time and picked apart their defense when they had the ball.
