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Opinion
Unless you’ve been living on a different planet, you will have heard the news that arguably the greatest player to grace the game is moving to Ligue 1 to join Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Gigi Wijnaldum, Achraf Hakimi and Marco Verratti, in what will become the most expensive team ever assembled.
However, quietly flying under the radar are OCG Nice, financially backed by England’s richest man and now managed by the coach who led Lille to an against the odds success in 2020-21.
Nice are an important club in French history with their glory years occurring in the 1950s, where they won four Ligue 1 titles and made it to the Latin Cup final – the precursor to the Champions League, featuring teams from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France – where they lost to Barcelona.
However, soon after winning their last title in 1959, they suffered relegation in 1964, and despite bouncing straight back-up, they became an established mid-table Ligue 1 club, who would get relegated on four more occasions throughout the 20th century, although in one of these relegation seasons they managed to win the French Cup, beating Guingamp in the final of the 1997 edition.
Since winning their last won promotion in 2002, they have never been relegated and have launched the careers of players such as Patrice Evra, Loic Remy, David Ospina and Hugo Lloris, all of whom would go onto bigger things, while the club itself has been slowly improving over the past five years.
Since Claude Puel led the side to a fourth-place finish in 2015-16, and then Lucien Favre bettered this in 2016-17, securing a third place finish with a squad featuring Mario Balotelli and Dante, the side have been making noise about competing with the Qatari-backed PSG.
Favre’s replacement Patrick Vieira didn’t quite work out, despite playing some nice football at times, but with Christophe Gaultier now in charge, the side may pose a real threat to ‘The Galacticos of Paris’.
With former Brazilian international Dante as their captain and leader, and a host of young prospects, including the 21-year-old attacker Amine Gouri, the 20-year old defender Jean-Clair Todibo (signed from Barcelona) and the loan-signing of Justin Kluivert, the club could well pose a threat to the Parisians if they are not able to shape their expensive stars into a cohesive unit.
(Photo by Marcio Machado/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
Moreover, they have two players who should be approaching the peak of their powers in 25-year-old attacking fullback Youcef Atal, and one of the heroes from Denmark’s Euro exploits in the summer in Kasper Dolberg – who will turn 24 in October and so should no longer counted as a prospect – who could explode into form this year.
With Gaultier’s guidance, and his lieutenants Dante, and Morgan Schneiderlin, who happen to be the only players in the squad over 30, this team, who unlike some of their rivals, do not have the burden of European football in 2021-22 which could help them focus their efforts on their domestic campaign.
After a disappointing 0-0 draw in the opening game against Reims, they blew away the reigning champions Lille, with three quick-fire first-half goals in an eventual 4-0 win.
Kasper Dolberg netted twice, and there is no reason that Dolberg could not outscore Mpabbe, Neymar, Messi and Mauro Icardi in the Ligue 1 golden boot race, and improve on his 2019-20 tally of 11, before an injury-hit campaign frustrated him last year.
If history tells us anything, it is that money doesn’t always guarantee success and this Nice team could well be the antidote to the greed that is polluting the game in the capital of France.
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