As often this season, a lot has happened in recent days on the French Riviera, where Niçois performances are worrying internally. Fifteenth with 27 points, Nice must beat Le Havre, a team ahead of them in the standings, this Sunday (5:15 p.m.) during the 29th Ligue 1 match.
“I hope and aspire that on Sunday, we will be a team. If we are not, we will not win,” warns captain Morgan Sanson. Since Claude Puel took over the Eaglets, they have achieved two victories and ten points in 12 matches. Only Metz and Nantes have done worse.
“One quarter of what I said to the rest of the group”
So the alarm has been (re)activated. In Strasbourg, without waiting for Nice’s return, the players expressed their truths in the locker room. “We shouldn’t have let that go,” Sanson emphasizes.
At halftime in Alsace, Nice was losing 3-0. Sanson then let out his “personal frustration” on the broadcaster’s microphone. “If I had to do it again, I would do the same, that was my feeling,” he explains. In fact, in the locker room, he was even more blunt.
“What I said to the cameras was one quarter of what I said to the rest of the group,” he admits. Several players spoke up, and things changed. What was said at halftime or after the match, not many will forget quickly.”
“Now it’s a knife fight”
If president Jean-Pierre Rivière also spoke, vice-president Maurice Cohen only spoke in the mixed zone, where he almost slipped up. “Now it’s a knife fight,” he emphasized. “Some deserve to have their heads put back in place.”
Meanwhile, Puel spoke to the players, as did some staff members. Then the group isolated themselves, the locker room door was closed. Yehvann Diouf, among others, took over to address the issues. Former Reims goalkeeper Diouf faced a similar situation last year, with a Cup final played (Nice will play Strasbourg in the semi-final on April 22) but also a relegation to Ligue 2.
Many players were confronted with their contradictions. Sofiane Diop and Isak Jansson, for example, were taken off at halftime and did not return to the bench. Juma Bah, also replaced, stayed with a physio. Diop and Jansson were sanctioned.
“There was a lot of passion,” acknowledges Puel, whose “role is to be careful of all things that could be contrary to collective expression.” “There are benchmarks, they are applied,” he says. “It’s been settled. Mistakes can happen. I hope it doesn’t happen again because we are all in the same boat,” Sanson emphasizes.
