A dull match, without highlights, then a counterattack. Lacking inspiration on their home turf against a well-organized Guingamp defense, the team lost one goal to nothing. A defeat that possibly signals the end of the naïve enthusiasm of the young eagles, unrewarded for their promising start to the season.
Football is an unforgiving sport. Very active since the first day of the championship, the Nice team has made a good impression. Play, desire, smiles—yes, this Gym has everything it takes to be appealing. Everything, except results. After five matchdays, the scoreboard only shows five points. Worse, until now the middling results in terms of points contrasted with enjoyable play, but tonight’s defeat is anything but scandalous. Perhaps the young eagles did not deserve to lose. They didn’t deserve to win either.
The two best chances for Nice during the evening were off-target shots, symbolic in a way. First, Koziello, in the 56th minute. After winning the ball high up the pitch, the young Nice midfielder made a nice run down the middle but aimed his left-footed attempt too wide, at the edge of the box. Twenty minutes later, it was Pléa who seemed close to scoring. Pied did an excellent job on the right flank and sent in a low cross, the Number 14 of Nice fired like a bullet, but far from Lossl’s goal. Like his attack mates, the former Lyon player lacked presence this evening. Not enough to incite the anger of a Puel more frustrated than angry with his players: “It’s really tough to lose tonight because we deserved better.”
When things don’t go your way…
The analysis of the whole match is unequivocal: Gourvennec’s two lines of four stifled Nice’s offensive sector. The Gym’s four midfielders never found their strikers with vertical passes. The few runs in depth by the three forwards each required passes far too complex to execute, and the Nice team settled for sterile possession.
Indisputably superior technically although short on ideas, Puel’s men had the ball, passed it around, then got countered. Particularly by Younousse Sankharé. In the 75th minute, the former Parisian sounded an alert. He sped down the left flank, leaving Paul Baysse in his wake, and drove into the box to serve Briand, who missed the target.
The next minute, Sankharé made a perfect deep run. A completely stationary Nice defense could only watch him adjust Hassen with a cross-shot. Guingamp leads 1–0 in the kind of match where a single goal is a lot. Despite a few late-game attempts, OGC Nice would not equalize. The Guingamp solidarity, already triumphant against Marseille two weeks ago, seems more than ever the solution to the offensive issues caused by the departures of Beauvue and Mandanne. For Nice, the blow is hard, especially with tough matches against Bastia, then Bordeaux and Saint-Etienne on the horizon. Truly, football is an unforgiving sport.
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