Nice 2-1 Grenoble (Plus Some Newsie Bits)

By: Martha | July 24th, 2008

First Half:

Letizi
Diakité-Hognon-Kanté-Jeunechamp
Echouafni-Fae-Helebuyck
Rémy-Modeste-Bamogo

Second half:

Ospina
Jeunechamp-Yahia-Cid-Rool
Fae-Hellebuyck-Traoré-Ben Saada
Modeste-Rémy

Goals: Modeste (22nd), Rémy (44nd) Nice; Flachez (45è) for Grenoble; video of the goals (in the old kits, still) here.

As usual, it’s hard to find out much about the match — it sounds like Grenoble had arguably the better of play after the first 10 minutes or so, but despite their possession, they failed to trouble the Nice goal at all. [Hilariously, the solution to their goal-scoring problem seems to be taking Matt Moussilou on loan. It would be sad to see him go because it's nice to have such an easy punchline sitting around, but I understand that his wanderlust and need to be unproductive in as many places as possible is calling him. Godspeed, Matt.] Things were a bit more ragged in the second half after all the substitutions, but Rémy apparently forced a couple saves out of the keeper — he went the full 90 minutes and reportedly looked great, which is both encouraging on the goal-scoring front, and also a reassuring indication that the shoulder knock he picked up against Nimes is no longer a concern.

And, if you watch the goals, there’s bits of good stuff there — Rémy and Modeste, in the glimpses we see, really do seem to be playing well together, and is that Bamogo over on the right, cutting inside before the second goal? That’s a nice bit of skill! And maybe there’s more of that sort of things in the 88 minutes we didn’t get to see! (Hey, I’m trying to be optimistic based on like two minutes of footage — cut me some slack, huh?) Nice still need a striker, but seeing the current crop working together productively is definitely reassuring. Also, there’s a great, exasperated arm-flap from Rool after the Grenoble goal goes in off of him, but I realize that’s not necessarily a reason to be optimistic about the season. Presumably Cyril #1 was with the second group because he missed some training this week — his grandfather died, and he left the team to spend time with his family.

After all the excitement over Quansah in that Nimes match, it’s weird that he didn’t even make an appearance. Of course, I don’t know if he even traveled with the team to Albertville, those sort of details are so hard to get out of Nice. Anyone who knows anything, please share.

In other news, Apam and Coulibaly are both officially gone now, not to return until after Nigeria and Ivory Coast are knocked out of the Olympics. Defensively, this is very scary, because even though Cid has shaved off his absurd facial hair, he and Cyril #2 don’t inspire that much confidence. That said, there’s no point in complaining about it — the team got through the African Cup of Nations without Apam, they’ll make it through the first few weeks of this season without him, too. Probably.

And, finally, in a pleasingly Big Club move, Nice have officially denied any interest in Rennes’ Mickaël Pagis, which is a pity because he’s ancient — just the right age for Nice — and has the added bonus of a proven goal-scoring record. Instead, the club are still in the mass of teams chasing Tenorio and Piquionne.