“I know I was on Everton’s Shortlist but I didn’t want to wait any more,” were the words of current Nice Swiss born coach Lucien Favre who was strongly tipped to succeed sacked Roberto Martinez at Everton in the summer only for him to move to Nice and Everton to instead appoint Dutchman Ronald Koeman from
Southampton weeks later.
As fate will have it, Everton are not in the top five of the Premier League table while Nice are topping the French Ligue 1 two points ahead of Jardim’s Monaco and four ahead of Unai Emery’s PSG.
Favre is known for his success story in both the Bundesliga and Swiss League where he transformed little known Borussia Monchengladbach to German Bundesliga powerhouse and Champions League also winning the Swiss League with FC Zurich. With Favre, Nice are not topping the table by luck rather it is down to Favre’s obsessive attention to detail, love to develop young talents from the club’s youth team and tactical masterclass. To buttress further, Nice have only lost once in the league (away to Caen), conceding 13 goals in 19 league games, the lowest in the league and scoring 32. Nice also beat big spenders Monaco (4-0 at home) likewise beating the likes of Lyon who are third in the table (2-0 at home), Rennes (1-0 at home ) sixth In the table and then playing an entertaining 2-2 draw away to PSG . Nice in the first round of the league this season have made their Allianz Riveira Stadium a fortress winning eight games and drawing two. The 58 year-old Swiss has achieved all these despite Nice losing four of last season’s best players in the summer with the likes of creative playmaker Hatem Ben Arfa joining PSG on a free transfer, Germain Valere going back to parent club- PSG having scored 14 league goals for Nice last season, captain Nampelys Mendy moving to Leicester City for €15.5 million and reliable right back Deremy Pied moving to Southampton for free.
Having replaced Claude Puel who finished fourth in the league last summer, Favre went about signing established players like Mario Balotelli on a free from Liverpool, defender Dante from Wolfsburg and an unknown but multi-talented Walter Cyprien from Lens. The Swiss changed Nice’s style from an all attacking and entertaining side who played diamond 4-4-2 with less emphasis on defence conceding many goals to his preferred 4-3-3 or 3-5-2 formation which focussed on maintaining a defensive cohesion with an energetic high pressing attacking verve that converted most of their chances.
In defence the former Borussia coach has turned inexperienced youngsters like P. Burner (20 years), M. Sarr (17 years) and A. Souquet (24 years), and goalkeeper Y. Cardinale (22 years) to stars of the league and one of the best in Europe’a top five leagues.
In attack, Cyprien (19 years)has been a revelation, thriving in his new role, giving decisive passes, exploiting gaps left by opponents and scoring six goals in the league. Also worthy of mention is striker Plea (23 years) who is the club’s highest goal scorer having notched up 12 goals partnering Mario Balotelli who has rediscovered his goal scoring form scoring eight league goals (10 goals in 11 games in all competitions). It is also on record that Nice gained 24 points after 11 league games which is a record given that apart from Lille (1949/1950) and Bordeaux (1953-1954), no other French club in has gained more as even a Zlatan Ibrahimovich’s inspired PSG did not achieve that.
With half of the season gone with Nice topping, it is not misleading to say that they deserve the Ligue 1 title more than any other French side.
Credit should also go to Jean- Pierre Rivere (made his fortune from property) who bought 51% of the club’s shares for €12 million at a period the club was fight fighting relegation with it’s highest paid players duo of Didier Digard and Fabrice Abriel earning €80,000 monthly. Under Rivere, Nice completed it’s new Allianz Riviera Stadium and presently paying the likes of Mario Balotelli €450,000 and Dante €250,000 monthly .
For now, Favre has shown he can mix it with the best coaches in the game judging from his records hence must be given the accolades he deserves as Nice fans pray they win the Ligue 1 by the end of the season.
Comments
Post a Comment