Nice has a date with history in front of Versailles

Between this semi-final and Paris Saint-Germain’s reception on Saturday for a confrontation between the leaders and third in the French League, a very big week awaits Nice and Allianz Rivera. The stadium will also be completely sold out to receive Messi and Neymar and will be operating well on Tuesday, with nearly 25,000 tickets already sold.

Largely a favorite in the lottery, the Aiglons are more so since the label has been reversed, Versailles has not found an available stadium in Ile-de-France to host the meeting. On the other hand, Nice offered to leave the recipe for the match to the amateur club, whose travel costs were also paid for by the gym.

The final is well worth it, especially since Nice has been waiting for it for a very long time. The last loss against Nancy dates back to 2006 at the Coupe de la Ligue. Lovers of Nice have long dreamed of an epic in the Coupe de France, capable of immortalizing a generation.

Calais 2022

Niçois won two in the 1950s (1952 and 1954), when the OGCN was the main club in the tournament with Reims. Since then, they have lost one in 1978 and won one in 1997 against Guingamp, which remains the club’s last trophy.

Then captain Frédéric Gioria waved the cup, which after 25 years we found an assistant to Christophe Galtier on the bench in Nice. “It’s not just a match in the Coupe de France. It’s a semi-final, one step away from the cup, two steps away from qualifying for the European Cup. This means behaviour, full investment,” Galtier warned on Monday at a press conference.

Descended from previous rounds of Paris Saint-Germain and OM, the Azores have no prior reason to be excessively afraid of Versailles, author of a great course but not yet facing the Tier 1 team.

Midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin warned that “Versailles should not be Calais 2022”. So Nice will be cautious, especially since the final day of the tournament sent only positive signals.

Miss Dante and Kluivert

Sure, Galtier’s men fought back at Strasbourg (0-0), but at the cost of a very defensive performance, the OGCN struggled throughout. Above all, Saturday in Alsace ended with two red cards, one of which was received on the pitch by central defender Dante, and the other on the bench by Justin Kluivert, the most brilliant striker in Nice at the moment.

So Nice will have to play the semi-finals without their captain, whose importance everyone measured during the nine months of his absence last season, and without Kluivert, who has made huge progress in recent weeks and who has ruled over the quarter. The final against OM with two amazing goals (4-1).

The club will also defend their Dutch player on the disciplinary committee, who could already be suspended due to the reception of Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday, which would be a very handicap. Because with only one point behind OM, which is not progressing very quickly at the moment, third-placed Nice can still believe in direct qualification for the Champions League, which is a real acceleration of the Ineos project.

Even if the Aiglons have won only one of their last four L1 matches and the quality of play isn’t always there, so they have a right to be ambitious and dream up a massive spring. This would start a little early in the event of qualifying for the Coupe de France final on Tuesday.