Winning the Ballon d’Or in 1991, Jean-Pierre Papin is currently the manager at C’Chartres Football in France’s National 2 division, but the 57-year-old still ends up on TV as a pundit, where he’s paid to voices his views.
One of his most recent outbursts came on beIN Sports when discussing the future of Marseille, who find themselves managerless following André Villas-Boas resigning.
Asked who he’d like to see at the helm in the south of France at a club where he spent six years as a player, Papin didn’t let realism cloud his judgment, going straight away for the Tottenham and Real Madrid managers.
Starting with Zinedine Zidane, he said, relayed by Foot-Sur7: “It would be good, he’s from Marseille and that’s important in the heart of fans. He’ll be more easily forgiven”.
As for José Mourinho, his reasoning was: “Mourinho is someone who rules with an iron fist. You need someone who doesn’t want to concede goals. I find Marseille concede too many”.
Ruling himself out of the running because he doesn’t think he has enough experience, Papin clearly has big ambitions for his former club, but this may be asking too much.
After all, Mourinho is still the man in charge at Tottenham, and while results haven’t really gone his way in recent days, there haven’t been many signs suggesting Daniel Levy is looking elsewhere.
Spurs find themselves eighth in the table after 22 games, four points off the top four, with the last spot currently occupied by Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
