Abedi Pelé from the corner, Basile Boli from the header to the finish: 30 years ago to the day, May 26, 1993, it was thanks to this 100% African goal (Boli was born in Abidjan even though he subsequently decided to represent France) that Olympique de Marseille beat AC Milan in the Champions League final in Munich (1-0).
At present, it is still the one and only coronation of a French club in the history of the competition. This title therefore continues to be the pride of the main actors of the time, starting with Pelé. “I am proud to have enabled OM to become the first French club to win a European Cup», reminded the ex-Ghanaian international in an interview for Foot.fr in 2021.”OM is one of the clubs that I have loved the most in my career.»
The eye of Pelé, the speeches of Tapie
The father of André and Jordan Ayew also confided to having prepared his coup before challenging the Rossoneri: “We talked about it the day before, I told Base’, given the size of Rijkaard, Gullit and Van Basten, we can’t go to the coal with them, so when I take the corner, we will have to be first. deflecting post. That’s how we scored.»
A head of Basile Boli forever engraved in the hearts of the Marseillais 💙 pic.twitter.com/g7qlPSzpUr
– Olympique de Marseille (@OM_Officiel) May 26, 2019
Two years after the failure on penalties in the final of the 1991 edition against Red Star Belgrade (0-0, 3-5 on pens), Pelé also insisted on underlining the importance of the emblematic and regretted President Bernard Tapie in the mental approach to the event. “If it’s not him who warms us up every day telling us that we can win, that we can do it, we can’t get out of it“, assured the man of 58 years. “He pushed us, he gave us morale by telling us: ‘you’re better than them, it’s not because they’ve won the European Cup four times over there that we can’t win, on D-day on the field you will be the best.” OM crowned thanks to
two Africans
: an action that perfectly sums up the particular link between the
Marseille club on the black continent.
