It’s the kind of grand entrance a new signing dreams of. A full, raucous stadium. A loud, guttural cheer from 60,000-odd as the debutant takes his first steps in his new jersey.
It’s a particular jersey, too, the number nine at Olympique Marseille. It’s one that has weighed notoriously heavily on many in the past. It’s one some strikers have quickly discarded because of the pressure it carries.
Amine Gouiri is the third different player already this season to be assigned OM’s number nine. But on the evidence of his first half-hour in it, it’s a good fit.
The Algeria striker joined from Rennes for €22 million in the last week of January, the closing phase of a winter transfer market especially animated by the movements of footballers from the Mena region.
Most, like Gouiri, have upgraded, invited to take on major responsibilities. For Egypt’s Omar Marmoush, that means galvanising a Manchester City season that has fallen spectacularly short of the club’s established standards.
For Jordan’s Mousa Al Tamari, it’s being asked to lift Rennes clear of the wrong end of France’s Ligue 1, where his previous club Montpellier have been struggling for a while.
Al Tamari has the added burden of filling some of the gaps left at Rennes by 24-year-old Gouiri’s departure.
The new Marseille number nine was rushed into action, less than 48 hours after completing the formalities of his transfer.
His new club had just sold Elye Wahi, an OM striker for less than six months, to Eintracht Frankfurt – where Wahi is replacing, in effect, Marmoush – and a portion of the fee was channeled directly into sealing the Gouiri deal.
He was immediately named on manager Roberto de Zerbi’s bench for Sunday’s visit of Olympique Lyonnais, the club where, aged 17, Gouiri made his professional bow.
“It all happened very quickly,” he said. “I had half a training session and was put straight into the squad for a very special game. I felt very proud, everything seemed right for things to go well.”
There was an immediate connection with De Zerbi, Marseille’s respected, innovative coach. “He was one the reasons I wanted to come to Marseille,” said Gouiri. “He has a specific way of playing and I can see myself in that system, that it suits my qualities.”
He means operating a mobile centre-forward, with licence to exploit space in wide and deeper areas as well as act as a target man.
“The coach mostly sees me in the number nine role,” explained Gouiri, “but he doesn't just want me to stay in the opposition penalty box.”
“He gives us a better level of technique,” enthused De Zerbi of his new striker, “he’s quick, unpredictable, hard for opponents to read.”
He’s been decisive already. When De Zerbi brought on Gouiri to the noisy applause of OM supporters at the Stade Velodrome, they were trailing Lyon 1-0 with 58 minutes gone of the French weekend’s standout fixture.
Within three minutes, Gouiri, attacking from the left, had set up an equaliser. Marseille won 3-2, maintaining their position as Paris Saint-Germain’s closest pursuers, albeit at a distance of 10 points, in Ligue 1.
The following evening, with the transfer window about to close in France, a celebrated compatriot had also arrived to join Gouiri in Marseille, a city whose diverse population includes an estimated 150,000 people of Algerian heritage.
The football club likes to imagine that, despite PSG’s serial successes domestically since they came under Qatari ownership 14 years ago, they have a fan base nearly equal in size to PSG’s.
This second major coup of a busy winter window for Marseille’s sporting director, Medhi Benatia, was the capture, on loan but with an option for a permanent deal, of Ismael Bennacer from AC Milan.
Recently returned from a long-term injury, the 27-year-old was Player of the Tournament when Algeria won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019 and a Serie A winner in 2021/22.
“His qualities suit De Zerbi,” said Marseille president Pablo Longoria ahead of Bennacer’s unveiling, scheduled for Wednesday.
The alliance – and, Algeria will hope, a developing on-the-pitch complicity – between Bennacer and Gouiri should benefit the national team, resurgent after successive disappointments in the last two Africa Cup of Nations.
Gouiri struck four goals in Algeria’s six qualifying games for the next Afcon, to take place in Morocco in December, while Bennacer’s return to fitness and with a new role in an enterprising Marseille midfield will be welcomed by Algeria manager Vladimir Petkovic.
There will be curiosity, too, about how the Algeria winger Said Benrahma fares, having also moved in the winter window, on loan from Lyon to ambitious Saudi Arabian club, Neom.
The Bennacer deal – a transfer Benatia, the former Morocco international, had previously explored last summer – was completed with little time to spare before the window shut in most of Europe, closing the circle of various ins and outs.
With Al Tamari moving into the vacancy created by Gouiri’s leaving Rennes, Montpellier reached out to Algerian veteran Andy Delort, who in September had joined Mouloudia of Algiers.
If a feature of last summer’s transfer market was the movement of senior Algeria players from Europe to North Africa, a trend this winter has been cutting those deals short.
Delort is now back in France’s top division, where he has spent much of his zigzag career.
Islam Slimani, the 36-year-old striker who five months ago made an emotional return to the first club of his senior career, Belouizdad, has meanwhile made Westerlo of Belgium the 13th different employer of his long professional timeline.
The costliest single deal so far of the winter window – it remains open in some countries – came from the big-spending Saudi Pro League, the €77m that took striker Jhon Duran from Aston Villa to Al Nassr.
Marmoush has commanded the largest fee for a transfer within Europe, City committing around €75m to Eintracht for the Egyptian.
Marmoush was promoted directly to the starting XI. But after a promising win against Chelsea, he endured Sunday’s chastening 5-1 defeat at Arsenal.
Not every newcomer can expect the sort of thrilling instant impact that has launched Gouiri’s Marseille adventure.
