The Boys Are Back in Town

By: Martha | December 29th, 2008

Obi-Wan Letizi wishes everyone a belated, vaguely creepy Merry Christmas.

Hooray, training starts today! That means there will be something to talk about other than transfer rumors for the next couple weeks, albeit more than likely only things like “Oh, crap, Rémy’s not fit yet,” or “God dammit, Cyril #1 hurt his calf again — is the man made of glass?” Still, though, beggars can’t be choosers, and anything is better than poring over the papers in the hope of finding a rumor with an actual grain of truth in it.

So, the team will be training twice today and twice tomorrow, then once Wednesday and once Friday (they have Thursday off, because they’re soft and need to rest) before Saturday night’s Coupe de France match against amateur side Arras.

At the moment, apart from training, there’s not a lot going on — the one noisy rumor is that Nice are tracking Lens’ Julien Sablé, but that seems likely to have grown more out of the fact that Antonetti coached him at ASSE than anything else, particularly since another midfielder is probably near the bottom of Nice’s shopping list at the moment. Oh, and also, Matt Moussilou is once again (allegedly) close to leaving: The latest rumors have him going back to Qatar, the scene of his scoring binge last season. Since he’s been on his way out about five times already this year, though, we should probably wait on counting the extra cash that’ll be sitting around if he actually leaves.

In news that’s not transfer-related, David Ospina spent the break in Nice rather than going home (his family came to him, which was very understanding of them), because he had to be Barcelona over the weekend to play Catalonia as part of a makeshift Colombia team. Ospina entered the game in the 55th minute with Colombia losing 0-2 and, according to the Colombian press — who describe him as “a great goalkeeper” — made two big saves to keep Colombia in the match (Huzzah!), though they eventually lost 1-2 (Boooo.).

Category: David Ospina, Nice Team News

Tags: David Ospina, Lens, Matt Moussilou, Nice Team News, transfers

« Not Dead! (Well, I’m not. Nice’s dreams of grandeur, however, may well be pushing up the daisies at this point.) | Home | Quick News Roundup »

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Comments  

• Jennifer |  December 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pm

  
  
  

  I don’t know why that image is so creepy, it’s either the look or the way that I think it is a man’s equivalent of a slutty Santa suit..

  So both Rémy and Rool are broken? That doesn’t sound great. But Nice has been making do (and been doing very well) without them in previous games Ospina is going to be The Next Great keeper. Nice are really good at picking those up huh?

  (Do you think ASSE will be saved this season? It feels like they’re getting worse and worse. I don’t think the change in management will save them…I think they might go to L2, finally, this season.)

  Posted from United States

  

• Martha |  December 30th, 2008 at 7:36 am

  
  
  

  Isn’t it awful? I don’t know what they were thinking. And he’s generally entirely uncreepy, but boy is that picture wrong.

  Cyril, at least, is not broken — he was in training yesterday, looking chipper and fit. Rémy was due back yesterday afternoon, so I’ve not seen him yet. He was hurt before the break, you know, and missed even more games; hopefully he’ll be ready once the season restarts, at least. (And Ospina is awesome, he’s so smart and calm back there, it’s very hard not to have confidence in him just from the way he carries himself.)

  I have to say that, apart from reading their forums after the Nice match and seeing how much 50% of them miss Antonetti, I know pretty much nothing about ASSE. It sounds like they’ve got long-standing problems, though, that have been more paper over than corrected in the last several years — is that accurate, do you think?

  Posted from United States

  

• Steven |  December 30th, 2008 at 10:56 am

  
  
  

  Just been reading through some Italy Offside-archives (yes, working for a magazine really is that boring during the holiday season), and although Francesco is doing a great job, I miss your work over there.

  Posted from Belgium

  

• Martha |  December 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

  
  
  

  Hey Steven, that’s really nice (ha ha) — thank you.

  (And I was just looking at pictures of Corini while he was at Palermo — that’s almost like going through the Palermo Offside archives, right?)

  Posted from United States

  

• Marco P. |  January 3rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm

  
  
  

  Steven, let’s start a petition to bring Martha back.

  Posted from Italy

  

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