page_title: Olympique de Marseille
section_title: 1965–1986: Leclerc era and crisis
hierarchical_section_title: Olympique de Marseille / History / 1965–1986: Leclerc era and crisis
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: WK 74, training Brazilie; Jairzinho
context_page_description: Olympique de Marseille, also known as OM or simply Marseille, is a French professional football club based in Marseille in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Founded in 1899, the club plays in Ligue 1 and have spent most of their history in the top tier of French football. The club has won ten official league titles, ten Coupes de France and three Coupes de la Ligue. In 1993, coach Raymond Goethals led the team to become the first and only French club to win the UEFA Champions League, defeating AC Milan 1–0 in the final. In 2010, Marseille won its first Ligue 1 title in 18 years under the managing of former club captain Didier Deschamps.
  Marseille's home ground is the 67,000-capacity Stade Vélodrome in the southern part of the city, where they have played since 1937. The club has a large fan-base, having regularly averaged the highest attendance in French football. Marseille's average home gate for the 2008–09 season was 52,276, the highest in Ligue 1. The stadium underwent renovation in 2011, going from its previous capacity of 60,031 to 42,000. Following completion in August 2014, the final capacity increased to 67,000 ahead of France's hosting of UEFA Euro 2016.
context_section_description: The first period of Olympique de Marseille's domination of the French League started in the early 1970s under Marcel Leclerc's presidency (1965–1972). His ambition allowed Marseille to return to the First division in 1965–66. They went on to win the Coupe de France in 1969 as well as the First division in 1971 with a record of 44 goals by Josip Skoblar, helped by Roger Magnusson. The arrival of Georges Carnus and Bernard Bosquier from Saint-Étienne helped them to win the Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France in 1972. Marseille played in the European Cup in 1971–72 and 1972–73, but were knocked-out by Ajax of Johan Cruyff and Juventus, respectively. However, success was not to last. Marcel Leclerc was forced to leave the club on 19 July 1972. The President was a stubborn man, and he threatened the league to withdraw his professional team from Ligue 1 because the federation refused to accept three foreign players per team (Leclerc wanted to acquire the Hungarian star Zoltán Varga but he had already the maximum number of two foreigners in his team). Marseille decided, instead of following Leclerc against the league, to fire him. Then followed an era of crisis, with Marseille only winning a Coupe de France in 1976 and being relegated to the second division, where they played with a bunch of young local players: the Minots who allowed the team to return to First division in 1984. Éric Di Meco was one of them.
caption: Brazilian 1970 World Cup winner Jairzinho joined OM in 1974.
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