The summer transfer window might now be closed, but Olympique de Marseille are not done with making big moves. On Sunday they announced that midfielder Adrien Rabiot is set to join as a free agent, subject to a successful medical. The France international left Juventus after the expiration of his contract and was courted by a number of top European clubs, including multiple Premier League sides, and also received lucrative offers from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Yet the 29-year-old will rebound at Stade Velodrome.
It is a huge move for Rabiot, OM and Ligue 1, but it also sends a message to European competitors that Roberto De Zerbi is making some serious moves with Les Phoceens after his surprise summer arrival after leaving Brighton and Hove Albion. A busy summer has included moves for Mason Greenwood, Elye Wahi, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Neal Maupay and Ismael Kone to name just a few, but Rabiot will arguably be as big — if not bigger — than the lot once he is confirmed as Marseille’s latest midfield reinforcement.
In the Paris region-born Les Bleus star, the Southern giants land a potentially huge figure for De Zerbi’s midfield, with an enormous amount of experience for someone who has not yet turned 30 and Rabiot could prove crucial in the Italian molding this new-look Marseille to challenge bitter rivals Paris Saint-Germain at the Championnat summit. The former Manchester City apprentice in turn gets challenged to help OM to return to UEFA competition qualification, while staying close enough to remain in France head coach Didier Deschamps’ thoughts ahead of the FIFA 2026 World Cup.
However, Rabiot’s PSG past is where things really get interesting and so surprising, as well as incendiary — he is crossing a divide that few have done over the years and it is one where there is no going back given the explosive nature of Le Classique as a rivalry. Although this is not a direct move from Paris to OM or Marseille to PSG, these two clubs and fanbases are as divided as ever which showed when Marseille-born Lucas Hernandez joined Les Parisiens last year despite never having even played for Les Olympiens.
The most recent player to really cross the divide of playing on both sides was Lassana Diarra back in 2018, who joined Paris just one year after leaving Marseille via Al Jazira Club and Hatem Ben Arfa had also done so in 2016 albeit with five years between his OM and PSG spells. You have to go all the way back to 2007 for the last direct switch between the two clubs which was Peguy Luyindula going to the capital club from their Southern rivals.
Some other famous names to have played on both sides of the divide include Claude Makelele, Gabriel Heinze and Lorik Cana and the Argentine is arguably the player who provoked the strongest reaction — he actually scored for both sides in Le Classique and remains one of just two players to do so. Rabiot will not be able to do this as he never scored in the grudge game for PSG, but Les Parisiens have a habit of seeing their former players come back to haunt them so keep an eye on that come October 27 at Stade Velodrome.
What sets Rabiot apart from most of those high-profile names is the fact that he is a homegrown PSG product who was raised to detest OM and at one point was being groomed as potential Parisien captain material in the earlier years under Qatari ownership. Although Cana was also technically an academy product when he broke through in the early 2000s, he was not raised exclusively in Paris and instead came via Switzerland as a result of his family‘s precarious situation which owed to the Kosovo conflict in the late 1990s and later represented Albania internationally.
Players going from one side of the Paris-Marseille rivalry inevitably adds more spice to the fixture and this season’s instalment of Le Classique was already intriguing enough given De Zerbi’s arrival and Luis Enrique’s continued transformation project at Parc des Princes. Assuming that Rabiot completes his move, there is a strong probability that we are about to witness the most aggressive version of this grudge game for years — arguably since the 2004-06 flurry of OM signings from PSG which Cana was part of along with Frederic Dehu, Fabrice Fiorese and the late Modeste M’Bami. It promises to be compulsory viewing.
