Marked for Moïse Bombito
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. OGC Nice will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Melvin Bard was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market4 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. OGC Nice have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Moïse Bombito falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“I did not go to RC Strasbourg to sit and watch. I want to come back to OGC Nice and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 21 matches say the rest.
Squad4 Jan 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“Nobody here treats me like a loan player, and that is worth more than people think.” 16 appearances and 0 goals, and a summer that will decide it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten OGC Nice
The unbeaten run reaches 20. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Íñigo Martínez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Sofiane Diop falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Dec 2026
12 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Yehvann Diouf has given nobody the chance.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Marked 7.94 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, OGC Nice had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Dec 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 18 matches without defeat is a foundation OGC Nice did not have in the autumn.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Sofiane Diop in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OGC Nice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at OGC Nice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Íñigo Martínez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Nobody could get near Elye Wahi
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Dec 2026
11 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Yehvann Diouf has given nobody the chance.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Loan watch7 Dec 2026
“I did not go to RC Strasbourg to sit and watch. I want to come back to OGC Nice and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Nov 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 17 matches without defeat is a foundation OGC Nice did not have in the autumn.
Match30 Nov 2026
OGC Nice refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Nov 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Ali Abdi keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” OGC Nice may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match28 Nov 2026
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad30 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OGC Nice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at OGC Nice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sofiane Diop is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OGC Nice will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Íñigo Martínez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Yassine Aïche is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A defender's afternoon for Moïse Bombito
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at OGC Nice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssouf Ndayishimiye is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every OGC Nice game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Strasbourg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match12 Sep 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. LOSC Lille came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad24 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Íñigo Martínez, 35, rolls back the years — 7.94
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OGC Nice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over RC Lens, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market24 Aug 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: Ternana will make the call about Laurent Abergel this week. OGC Nice have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 13. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.