Marseille broke their unenviable 13-match losing streak in the Champions League as Dimitri Payet poached a pair of penalties to fire his side to a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Olympiacos at the Orange Vélodrome on Tuesday night.
OM's poor European form was verging on being record-breaking, but finally André Villas-Boas's side managed to translate their strong domestic form onto the European stage with a 2-1 win at home to Greek club Olympiacos on Tuesday.
AVB: 'Learnt a lot of lessons'
The match took on an all too familiar aspect when Mady Camara hit an unstoppable snap-shot past Steve Mandanda (33'), but OM fired back in the second half, Payet proving cool, calm and collected as he fired high to the right on two occasions after the referee had pointed to the spot.
"We're all very relieved; you can't change the past but our losing streak had to be stopped," said a frank AVB after the match. "We've learnt a lot of lessons in this Champions League campaign. We were bad in the first four matches, but we were unlucky too. This win is important for the lads, for their confidence."
Final hurdle
And confidence is something they will need plenty of if they are to pip Olympiacos to third place and salvage the campaign by qualifying for the Europa League last 16 in their final match away to Manchester City. That would take either a win over Pep Guardiola's side - coupled with Olympiacos' failing to beat Porto - or a draw, should Olympiacos lose to the Portuguese side.
In the meantime, OM return to domestic action with Friday night's trip to derby rivals Nîmes.
