Champions League preview: Marseille v Inter

Claudio Ranieri will be praying his Inter
Milan team rediscover their winning
touch away to Marseille in the Champions
League round of 16.
Ranieri guided Inter to an eight-match
winning streak during December and
January, but their form has since
deserted them and they have now lost five
of their past six matches in all
competitions.
The slump has left Inter seventh in Serie
A, 14 points back from league leaders AC
Milan and six points outside the
Champions League qualification places.
With the prospect of Inter failing to secure a
spot in next season’s tournament increasingly
likely, it will be up to Ranieri and his players to
prolong this campaign for as long as possible.
It remains to be seen if they will be able to do so,
with the surviving members of Inter’s 2009/10
treble-winning team seemingly unable to
reproduce their form of two years ago.
Chief among the out-of-sorts stars contributing
to Inter’s slump is Netherlands international
Wesley Sneijder.
The playmaker was heavily linked with a move to
Manchester United in the off-season, and
although he ultimately remained with Inter,
Sneijder has struggled to match his output of
previous campaigns.
The 27-year-old was sidelined with injury from
November to January, and in his absence
Ranieri adopted a new formation, one which
Sneijder has thus far failed to adapt to.
On Wednesday Inter are likely to be greeted by
a typically hostile atmosphere at the Stade
Velodrome, where Marseille’s fanatical
supporters will demand nothing less than a
victory on home soil.
After a slow start to the Ligue 1 season,
Marseille coach Didier Deschamps has dragged
his team to fourth place on the table.
A distant 12 points back from league leaders
Paris Saint-German, Marseille are unlikely to
regain the title they surrendered last season.
But with just three points separating them from
third-placed Lille, Champions League
qualification remains a realistic ambition.
If either of Wednesday’s protagonists can extend
their participation beyond the last 16, the latter
stages of this competition will be familiar
territory to the respective coaches.
They squared off in the 2003/04 semi-finals,
when Deschamps, then in charge of Monaco,
inflicted a 5-3 aggregate defeat on Ranieri’s
Chelsea team.
That loss effectively cost the Italian his job, with
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich bringing in
Jose Mourinho as his replacement.
Both men have since enjoyed spells in charge of
Juventus, but 1998 World Cup winner
Deschamps is now back in his native France.
Deschamps will be looking to take Marseille one
step further than last season, when his side
exited the round of 16 at the hands of
Manchester United.