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20th Sep 2015

Marseille fans take treatment of ‘traitor’ Valbuena to ridiculous levels

They *might* have overreacted

Tom Victor

Every football team has that one player who their fans despise for the manner in which they left the club.

When he returns, the response will generally be a foul-mouthed chant or two, and maybe some vitriolic booing.

As bad as the actions of the traitor/Judas/snake (delete as appropriate) may be, you’d never go as far as making an effigy of a former player and bringing it to the ground, right?

If you said yes, you’re clearly not a Marseille fan.

Mathieu Valbuena returned to the Stade Velodrome for the first time since trading France for Russia (and subsequently returning to Ligue 1 with Lyon), and this is the reception he received.

https://twitter.com/itsultralife01/status/645677466649030656

It didn’t stop with the fans either – Marseille’s Romain Alessandrini earned himself an early bath for this challenge on the French international.

At least we’ll call it a challenge. It was almost more of an assault.

There was bad blood throughout, up to the point that the game had to be stopped for a full 20 minutes.

We imagine we haven’t seen the end of this.