Under the azure drizzle, Nice welcomes Metz, the Ligue 1 bottom team, for the 37th matchday. The team, coached by Frédéric Antonetti, is on a fabulous home streak with 10 wins and a draw in all competitions. The men led by captain Cédric Varrault are the favorites according to predictions. And yet…
The first 45 minutes from the Eagles are lackluster. They falter: imprecise passes, no options for the ball carrier, poorly managed controls. The Lorrains take advantage. Led by a very good Ludovic Obraniak, they almost logically open the scoring at the 22nd minute. The Nice defense pushes a corner into the feet of Obraniak on the left wing. He delivers a cross to the head of Laurent Agouazzi who scores his first career goal. OGC Nice must wait until the 46th minute to create their first big chance: Metz’s Youla faces Grégorini alone who stops the shot from the Guinean forward and on the counter, Baky Koné goes one-on-one against the Metz goalkeeper but Christophe Marichez wins the duel…
“Metz had nothing to lose. The players were free from any pressure and the team from Metz was united,” says Marama Vahirua, who spent the first half and the first ten minutes of the second half on the bench. He accelerated the game and moved forward more. For observers and supporters, his entrance can be considered decisive. He denies it: “I tried to bring something extra like every player who enters during a match.” Frédéric Antonetti motivated his players and the red and blacks came back with better intentions. More lively, more combative, the Nice players gain the upper hand. And the equalization confirms this. Following a cross from Rod Fanni, Marichez misses his clearance in the air. Sammy Traoré gets ahead of him and from 18 meters heads the ball into the net. The hardest part is done.
Eight minutes later, the sober and clean Drissa Diakité, who replaced the suspended Olivier Echouafni, perfectly opens on the right wing to Rod Fanni. The right-back delivers a strong cross in front of the goal. Baky Koné is slightly short but at the far post David Bellion drives the ball into Marichez’s net. 2 to 1 for Nice and a second decisive assist for Rod Fanni.
The Metz players then leave more space. The Eagles step up their attacks with a dazzling Vahirua leading and a meticulous Balmont. Opportunities follow through Vahirua, Balmont who hits the post, and Bagayoko towards the end of the match. No more goals will be scored. The Eagles offer a beautiful victory to the 13,000 spectators at the Stade du Ray for their last home game. For the final match, Nice will travel to Troyes. An incredible twist of fate would allow them to clinch a spot in the Intertoto Cup provided that Rennes lose at home against Lille and Lens against Nantes, and that Auxerre does not win against Strasbourg at the Abbé Deschamps Stadium. Marama Vahirua remains ambitious: “We will go to Troyes to win. We need the three points because you never know. In any case, we have to achieve the best possible ranking. It’s always rewarding to finish sixth or seventh.” In the end, OGC Nice will finish very close to Europe. “We will have regrets,” continues the Tahitian, “because when we think back, we lost away games when we could have drawn or won like at Lens, and I’m not even mentioning the early season home games.”
Regrets but no remorse, Antonetti’s gym has restored pride to the Nice supporters. At the end of the match, a fireworks display concludes the evening and the season for OGC Nice at the Stade du Ray while waiting for the grand finale that might take place in Troyes next week.
Reactions:
Frédéric Antonetti: “I would like to pay tribute to this team from Metz, to its coach and its president. It’s a real football town. When things are going well for us, we must think of those for whom things are not going so well. Speaking of the match, we completely missed the first half. In the second, we saw the real Nice who were lucky enough to equalize, then I think the victory was deserved. The entry of Marama Vahirua did us good. He brought what he knows how to do: taking balls, fixing positions, final passes. We would have deserved to score a third goal but the goalkeeper intervened. We wanted to win for the public who supported us while it was going well but also during the first part of the season. I do not forget the people who were with us during the first six months when it had not yet taken off, without the desired results. It’s in these moments that I observe a lot.”
David Bellion, second scorer: “We got a talking-to at halftime. We were playing a bit easy with too many lateral passes. We needed to wake up. We were at home. We had to stay unbeaten and we reacted well in the second half. We took three points. After that, for the scorer, it’s good for confidence especially when playing upfront. We have one match left. Mathematically, we can still clinch something so we’ll see. After losing the final, when you see 26,000 people in a stadium, it’s quite something. We know the public is behind us. Sometimes, you have to feel accountable to the supporters.”
