Mercato: Sakai wants to leave OM

Olympian right-back Hiroki Sakai (31) announced to his leaders that he wanted to leave OM, and the Marseille club will not retain him. The Japanese press even claims that he will return to his country and that he has already agreed with a club for next season.

It is undoubtedly the end of a five-year adventure for Hiroki Sakai. The Japanese press, in particular the media Nikkan Sport, announces that the 31-year-old Olympian side could engage this summer with the club Urawa Red Diamonds, in Japan. Sakai is at the end of his contract with OM in June 2022, and this transfer would bring the Marseille club a transfer fee of around 1.5 million euros.

According to our information, Sakai does indeed want to leave OM. He announced it to his leaders and did not hide it from some of his teammates. The Japanese man feels at the end of his Marseille adventure, and has the feeling that he has given a lot, endured a lot, especially with many sequences of matches when he was sometimes injured or physically fragile.

Last season, with André Villas-Boas, Sakai played for a long time while he was in delicacy with an ankle, before undergoing surgery during the first confinement. Under AVB or Rudi Garcia, he never calculated either, despite various pains.

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Sampaoli won’t hold back Sakai

The player has the feeling that his availability has sometimes been abused, especially when he came back from selection, with a very short period of time to recover, which created a little annoyance for him, Sakai considering that the fact of ‘being too busy ended up hurting his performance.

In recent weeks, the former Hanover defender has asked Jorge Sampaoli not to pull the rope, which explains the precautions taken with the Japanese player, several times absent from the scoresheet recently. Sakai does not want to miss the deadlines available to him, in particular this possibility of regaining the championship of his country.

Jorge Sampaoli and Pablo Longoria understood his will, and will not hold it back. Despite a slightly bitter end to the adventure, Sakai confides to those around him that he will keep a very strong memory of his Marseille years, with the European adventure of 2018 as a climax and this goal against Leipzig, in a Velodrome in fusion, on his birthday.