Nine Goals, Then Silence
Marseille and Nice meet again with fourth place at stake and old scores, in both senses, waiting to be settled.
Last time these two met in Marseille, nine goals fell like rain and Nice walked away with a 5-4 win. Now the sides sit fourth and sixth, eighteen points against sixteen, and the Côte d'Azur derby asks which of them still remembers how to defend.
Marseille's 4-4-2 has been a miser of late, one clear-cut chance conceded every 180 minutes, and Eric Geyer, averaging 7.38 across his recent games, will test Barış Kartal on the right. But Nice arrive wounded: Bryan Fonteneau's ribs, Etienne Fritsch's calf and Robert Poch's knee thin them, and Michiel Verweij's pace against Alfred Balcells looks the evening's most delicious cruelty. Louis Tourenne's hip keeps him from the Marseille eleven. Emilio Cifuentes, ten years a Marseille man, returns to the ground where he was made.