OGC Nice are one of the giants in French football. They usually finish in the top six but failed to do so in the previous season. Nice finished ninth in the league table and missed out on Europe. The 2023–24 season has seen a mixed start to every French league team’s campaign. Monaco are the surprising leaders at the end of matchday nine. Defending champion PSG brought in a lot of talent and a new manager. However, things have not worked in their favour at the moment, and they are third in the league table.
Nice sits second in the table and are the only team with an unbeaten record in Ligue 1 2023-24. They have already secured results against some of the top teams in the division. Let’s take a look at how Nice’s season is going and whether they will keep the momentum until the end of the season.
Best defensive record
One of the reasons behind every team’s success is their defence. If a team concedes fewer goals, then the attack automatically gets a boost and starts scoring some crucial goals. Nice have the best defensive record in the French top division. Francesco Farioli’s men have only conceded four goals in the first nine games.
OGC Nice players have won 63.2% of their defensive duels and 49.4% of their aerial duels. In the last four games, Nice have not conceded a single goal. These include clean sheets against giants Monaco and Marseille.
Polish goalkeeper Marcin Bulka has been the biggest game-changer in the squad. He already has six clean sheets in nine games and has made 16 saves, including two penalties. Nice’s defence only allows 8.67 shots per match.
Upsetting the big guns
OGC Nice haven’t been a huge scoring side. The team has won five matches and drawn the other four. They have managed to find the back of the net 10 times. Averaging 27 positional attacks and two counter-attacks per match, Nice players take 12.44 shots and have a 35.7% accuracy rate. All goals have been scored from inside the penalty box.
Nice have already registered wins against PSG, Monaco and Marseille. These three wins came in the last five matches. Averaging 12 shots per game, the team managed to hit the target 17 times. The defence kept clean sheets against Marseille and Monaco but conceded two goals against PSG.
Francesco Farioli’s men know their game plan and have produced results in every game. An unbeaten start to the season has been followed by results against the big guns. Nice will look to carry this momentum and hope to lift the French title.
Visuals via TFA data viz engine