PARIS (AP) — New coach. Same old story for Marseille.
Wednesday night’s French Cup defeat realistically means another trophyless season for the southern club, which has not won anything for 14 years and has slid from Ligue 1 title contender to fourth place.
Marseille’s habit of hiring and firing coaches has introduced Habib Beye to replace Roberto De Zerbi, the latest sacking.
De Zerbi was highly regarded until the team failed to even qualify for the Champions League playoffs by finishing a dismal 25th in the group phase, then lost 5-0 to Paris Saint-Germain.
Beye has lost two of three matches so far, and the players were booed off the field at Stade Velodrome on Wednesday after being knocked out of the cup quarterfinals by Toulouse, despite twice taking the lead.
Marseille’s weak defending has been a flaw for several seasons yet no real changes have been implemented.
Goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli remains a liability on crosses and central defender Leonardo Balerdi somehow remains in the side — and as captain — despite a litany of high-profile mistakes for three seasons running.
“We can’t accept this, we don’t come here to play like this,” Balerdi said after Wednesday’s defeat. But he was at fault on Toulouse’s second equalizer, missed his effort in the penalty shootout, and almost got into a fight after the defeat.
Fans have had enough, with some throwing flares onto the field as the players walked off, and so have former players.
“When you analyze the matches you see that with this team even if they’re leading and have a comfortable advantage, the house of cards collapses as soon as they concede a goal,” former standout midfielder Samir Nasri told Canal Plus television. “Mentally, there’s a problem in this team. I’m afraid of any team (we're going to play).”
Next up for Marseille is Toulouse away on Saturday. However, Toulouse is out of form in the league, having lost three and drawn two of the past five games.
Ligue 1 leader PSG welcomes back Ousmane Dembélé from a calf injury for Friday's home game against Monaco, which beat PSG 1-0 at home in November.
Lens is four points behind PSG in second place and should be able to benefit if PSG slips up because it hosts rock-bottom Metz on Sunday.
Third-placed Lyon looks to snap a two-game losing streak when it hosts Paris FC in Sunday's late game.
Balerdi, if he plays. Most Marseille fans want him out of the club.
Monaco winger Simon Adingra has three goals in four games since joining on loan from Premier League Sunderland.
In-form striker Joaquín Panichelli aims to add to his 14 league goals when Strasbourg travels to Auxerre on Saturday. He is the co-leader in the scoring charts with Marseille's Mason Greenwood.
Rennes defender Jérémy Jacquet needs a shoulder operation and could miss the rest of the season. The 20-year-old Jacquet is joining Premier League champion Liverpool next season.
PSG midfielders Fabián Ruiz (knee) and João Neves (ankle) remain sidelined. PSG coach Luis Enrique hopes to have Neves back for the Champions League last 16 game against Chelsea next Wednesday.
Long-suffering Sochaux fans got a boost with the news that the Peugeot logo is expected to feature on the club's jerseys again.
The French car manufacturer ended its long-standing ownership when it sold the club 11 years ago following relegation to the second tier.
Sochaux is now in the third tier but challenging for promotion and Peugeot — whose logo features a lion proudly standing tall — has reportedly signed a five-year sponsorship deal.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Brighton's Simon Adingra runs into position during the English Premier League soccer match between Brighton and Hove Albion and Leicester City, at the American Express Stadium in Brighton, England, Saturday, April 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland, File)
FILE - Rennes' head coach Habib Beye smiles during the French League One soccer match between Rennes and Nice, Oct. 26, 2025 in Rennes, western France. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran launched new wave of attacks Thursday morning at Israeli and American bases following a threat to destroy military and economic infrastructure across the region, which came after the U.S. and Israel intensified their bombardment of Iran and a U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean.
Israel announced multiple incoming missile attacks and air sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Iranian state television said additional strikes also targeted U.S. bases. The Israeli military said it launched targeted strikes in Lebanon at Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The U.S. and Israel launched the war Saturday, targeting Iran’s leadership, missile arsenal and nuclear program while suggesting that toppling the government is a goal. But the exact aims and timelines have repeatedly shifted, signaling an open-ended conflict.
The tempo of American and Israeli strikes on Iran was so intense Wednesday that state television announced the mourning ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the conflict, would be postponed. Millions attended the funeral of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989.
President Donald Trump praised the U.S. military for “doing very well on the war front, to put it mildly.” Fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate stood with Trump on Iran as they voted down a resolution seeking to halt the war.
Iran fired on Bahrain, Kuwait and Israel as the conflict spiraled. Turkey said NATO defenses intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran before it entered Turkey’s airspace.
The war has killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, more than 70 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. It has disrupted the supply of the world’s oil and gas, snarled international shipping and stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers in the Middle East.
Countries around the region braced for potential dangers Thursday, a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened “the complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure.”
Qatar’s Interior Ministry said authorities were evacuating residents near the U.S. Embassy in Doha as a temporary precaution, without providing further details.
Fighter jets could be heard overhead in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai and Saudi Arabia said it destroyed a drone in its province bordering Jordan.
A new attack off the coast of Kuwait appeared to expand the area where commercial shipping was in danger.
An explosion rocked the area early Thursday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center run by the British military. It said a tanker apparently came under attack, but the agency did not offer a cause. Iran in the past has attacked ships by attaching limpet mines to them.
Prior attacks since fighting began Saturday have happened in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, which connects it to the Persian Gulf and through which about a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped.
Brent crude prices are up 15% since the start of the conflict as Iranian attacks have disrupted traffic through the strait, with the current price the highest since July 2024.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a torpedo from an American submarine sank an Iranian warship Tuesday night in the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lankan authorities said 32 crew members were rescued, while its navy recovered 87 bodies.
Israel said it hit buildings associated with Iran’s internal security command as well as the Basij, an all-volunteer force of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard whose bloody crackdown on protesters in January left thousands dead.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said his country's forces have decentralized leadership, with units acting largely on their own, which could blunt the effect of attacks on top command and control hubs.
During his Pentagon briefing, Hegseth did not give a definitive timeline for U.S. operations, which Trump has said could last for a month or longer.
“You can say four weeks, but it could be six. It could be eight. It could be three,” Hegseth said. “Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we’re going to keep them off balance.”
U.S. and Israeli military officials say launches from Iran have declined as their attacks have taken out ballistic missiles, launchers and drones. Israel's Homefront Command announced it was easing restrictions that closed workplaces nationwide. It said workplaces could reopen Thursday if there is a shelter nearby. Schools would remain closed.
Still, explosions sounded early Thursday in Israel, which said its defensive systems were moving to intercept at least three waves of Iranian missiles.
At least 1,045 people have been killed in Iran, the country's Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs said Wednesday. Eleven people have died in Israel. Six U.S. troops have been killed, including a major whose identity was released Wednesday.
Another eight people were killed in Lebanon, including two in a building struck by the Israeli military in the Beddawi refugee camp in the coastal city of Tripoli on Thursday and three on a coastal highway, authorities said. The Israeli military did not immediately say who it targeted in the strikes.
In two near-simultaneous Israeli drone strikes in Beirut's southern suburbs late Wednesday, two vehicles were hit, killing three people and wounding six, the health ministry said. The Israeli military said it targeted a Hezbollah member, adding that further details would follow.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the offensive against Iran was originally planned for mid-2026, but “the need arose to bring everything forward to February.”
He listed events inside Iran, Trump's positions and the possibility of “creating a combined operation” as reasons.
The protests in Iran put unprecedented pressure on its leadership. Trump threatened military action in response to the crackdown before shifting his attention to Iran's disputed nuclear program.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the U.S. launched its operation partly out of concern Iran might strike U.S. personnel and assets in the region first. A phone call between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the airstrikes began also was “important with respect to the timeline,” she said.
Iran’s leaders are scrambling to replace Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years. It is only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that a new supreme leader is being chosen.
Potential candidates range from hard-liners committed to confrontation with the West to reformists who seek diplomatic engagement. Mojtaba Khamenei, Khamenei’s son, has long been considered among them, though he has never held a government position.
In a sign that Iran’s leadership will only seek to consolidate its power, the head of the judiciary warned that “those who cooperate with the enemy in any way will be considered an enemy.”
Israel's defense minister, Katz, said on X that Iran's next supreme leader “will be a target for elimination” if he continues to threaten Israel, the U.S. and others.
Rising reported from Bangkok, Becatoros from Athens, Greece, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, Lebanon, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Miami contributed to this report.
A billboard showing a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes, looms over an empty square in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Plumes of smoke rise as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A police officer salutes as vehicles transport British Defence Secretary John Healey enter at the U.K.'s RAF Akrotiri air base near Limassol, Cyprus, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
Israeli security forces inspect the site struck by an Iranian missile in central Israel, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Residents and Israeli security forces inspect the site struck by an Iranian missile in central Israel, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smoke and flames rise from the site of Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburb, near Rafik Hariri International Airport, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A cleric leads a group of volunteers in prayer next to a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli tanks maneuver near the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A shepherd boy walks away from an unexploded Iranian projectile that landed in an open field in the outskirts of Qamishli, eastern Syria, Wednesday, March 4, 2026.(AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
A man carries an Iranian flag to place on the rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
