In a wide-open Group D, everything was possible for Marseille coming into their Matchday 6 clash at home to leaders Tottenham. Tudor's players knew that a win - coupled with a draw in the other match, between Sporting and Frankfurt - would see them top the group, and did all they could to get it.

One-nil up at half-time, things were looking good for OM until Clément Lenglet (54') cancelled out Chancel Mbemba's excellent opener (45'+2). Now at 1-1, the OM players believed they were staring down the barrel of elimination and pushed even harder.

However, with Frankfurt's former Nantes man Randal Kolo Mani hitting a comeback winner in the 72nd minute of the other match to make it 2-1 in Lisbon, the 1-1 draw would have been enough for Marseille to qualify for the Europa League Play-offs as one of the best third-placed sides.

Change of plan

But, such was the atmosphere in the Orange Vélodrome as Pierre-Emil Hojbjerg hit the cross-bar and Sead Kolasinac saw his header bounce over in an intense final 15 minutes, that Tudor was unable to get the message to his players.

"The last minute was confusing, there was a lot of noise," said the Croat, whose side had dominated their English visitors for long periods. "We wanted the players to stay in the game but it was so noisy that we couldn't hear each other. If there had been a stoppage in play, we could have told them, but in that context we couldn't communicate with them."

The result was of course Hojbjerg's late winner, which condemned Marseille to bottom spot in the group and, as a result, no further European football this season.

The first match of the rest of the season...

Their first opportunity to bounce back comes in Sunday night's crunch Olympico at home to Laurent Blanc's resurgent Olympique Lyonnais.

(Photo credit: Tottenham)