Friendly match against Bruges: OGC Nice gets off to a serious start

It's always better to win matches, even in preseason games. Bouanani's brace, for example, is a good thing to take for confidence and to extend the Algerian's positive momentum at the end of last season. The Gym's first steps in the 2025-26 season will also be lighter in the minds of the 500 season-ticket holders who were able to witness the narrow victory over Cercle Bruges.

" It was pretty good," judged the main player concerned about the content of the match, Franck Haise. "There were some good moves, we showed intensity and still had a lot of chances. The score could have been a little bigger, I think. But I think that for a first time, it was positive in terms of the principles of play. Obviously, with a year's work behind it, it's a little clearer than at the start of preparation last year."

Bernardeau, that's promising

"Managing playing time with those who arrived a little later, especially the internationals" was another priority for the coach. Hicham Boudaoui and Evann Guessand only participated in the last half hour, when the score was secured and neither Boga nor the young Bernard Nguene (2006) managed to increase the score despite good situations. In the middle of the 3-5-2, it was the equally young Gabin Bernardeau who started alongside Sanson and Louchet. The activity of the former Le Mans player did not go unnoticed.

" For three weeks, he's been showing good things, and we saw it again this morning. We can see his intelligence, his technical ability, his running volume, his ability to take up space ," his coach lists. To better temper expectations around a kid who was still playing in the 18-year-old R1 a little over a year ago. "The top level obviously requires a little more density in certain aspects, a little more strength to defend. But for a youngster who, at 18-19 years old, is coming off a first season in the National, that bodes well."

Yehvann Diouf had a relatively quiet first 45 minutes, only being deceived by a misunderstanding on a header from Bard. It must be said that ahead of him, Juma Bah reigned supreme in the aerial game while Dante took care of the rest. He even provided the perfect assist for Bouanani for the quick opening goal (1').

A quickly hoped-for central

"Today, we have three central defenders, and we don't know when we'll get the fourth back," the Gym coach added , referring to Bombito's micro-crack in his tibia. "We were already thinking about it before, but now we're forced to look into recruiting an additional central defender."

Franck Haise also explained that Ali Abdi, who has been suffering from adductor problems until now, and Isak Jansson, who, like Laborde, only trained separately yesterday, should be back in the coming week. "With the ongoing negotiations, we weren't going to take any risks," the coach acknowledged, this time regarding the 31-year-old striker's likely transfer to Saudi D2 (Al-Diraiyah FC).