Derby disgrace for Nice on and off the pitch

There seems to be no stopping Monaco’s Brazilian-South Korean duo of Luis de Carvalho Nenê and Chu-Young Park who between them took all three goals in the derby, Park the first two (16 and 60 minutes into the game) and Nenê the third (62 minutes). The team were without the unpopular Eidur Gudjohnson, 31, the expensive Icelandic striker who had scored no goals since his arrival in August and is now on loan to Tottenham in the UK.

Coach Guy Lacombe’s men went into the Saturday night derby riding high after five wins and eight straight matches in a row without a defeat. They have climbed steadily back up to sixth position after a dismal November/December period. Victories included a storming 4-1 victory over the season’s surprise stars, Montpellier (currently second in the league) on 13 January, and they knocked Lyon out of the French Cup last weekend to go through to the quarter finals.

The Red and Whites are on the opposite trajectory to Nice who have not won a match since 22 November, and have sunk like a stone to 16th position, six points away from the relegation zone. Fans reacted angrily to their team’s performance on Saturday, barracking the players and calling for coach Didier Ollé-Nicolle to resign. Minutes after the final whistle was blown, around 200 Nicois invaded the Louis II pitch and started tearing up publicity hoardings only to be met with tear gas by the riot police. 

Why it all ended in such chaos is under investigation with changes to the train timetable back to Nice and a provocative gesture made by Nenê after the third goal being blamed.

Meanwhile, Didier Deschamps’ men in Marseille will be kicking themselves for squandering the opportunity to go into second place after Bordeaux (top of the league on 48 points) drew against lowly Boulogne (19th) earlier on in the day on Saturday. In a highly charged match which brought out the yellow card seven times (three against Marseille players and four for Montpellier), the feisty Montpellier men held their nerve and proved once again why they are having such a successful season. CL