A week after their cruel defeat in Monaco, Nice hosts another neighbor: Olympique de Marseille. Facing the Phoceans, the people of Nice will have a tough challenge, and another defeat is not allowed.
Everything was going so well. A new shareholder was set to buy the club, and there were good results on the field: Nice had started the year perfectly. But this week, the entire Riviera mechanism seemed to stall. First, Nice fell in Monaco, saying goodbye to a second place that the club had only dreamed of before the match.
Then, two pieces of bad news hit Jean-Pierre Rivère’s club. First, and most concerning in the short term, it was learned that Hatem Ben Arfa would be unavailable for nearly five weeks. At this point in the championship, the playmaker of the “Aiglons” will miss the crucial end of this particularly competitive Ligue 1 season.
Next, the club announced during the week that it had ended negotiations with the Saudi prince who was supposed to buy the club due to non-compliance with deadlines. This was a logical precaution given the Mamadov case in Lens and Maillol in Le Havre last year, where their acquisition projects turned out to be bogus.
To get back on track, Nice is in dire need of a victory, especially since OM is only 5 points behind them in the standings. In the event of a defeat, the Gym is likely to spoil a very positive start to the year in terms of standings. It would make the task for the end of the season significantly more difficult.
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