With two points out of a possible six, Lucien Favre and his players did not start their season in the league in the best possible way.

Despite an attractive first half punctuated by a goal from the penalty spot by Andy Delort (35th), Nice sinned as soon as they returned from the locker room and lowered their flag on a goal from Kevin Gameiro (56), without ever managing to destabilize the Alsatian defense again afterwards.

Nice, in search of an attacker, still clearly lacks a strong attacking asset to be able to claim to play at the top of the table this season.

Especially since we will now have to chain two weeks to three matches, with a round-trip dam against Maccabi Tel Aviv (August 18 and 25).

Defeated at home last week, Strasbourg logically took their first point of the season, after a solid match.

Under the eyes of Guy Stephan, assistant to Didier Deschamps and father of Julien, the Alsatian coach, and Sylvain Ripoll, coach of the Espoirs, Nice aligned for the first time Kasper Schmeichel in goal.

It took a quarter of an hour to see his ability to thwart the opposing striker.

Kevin Gameiro's flick, launched deep, did not surprise the Danish goalkeeper, who came out well and remained standing (15th).

- Gameiro responds to Delort -

His second save was more significant.

He laid down perfectly to deflect Alexander Djiku's deflected volley from 8 meters (23) with his foot.

These two great Strasbourg chances did not reflect the first half.

Because in his 4-2-3-1, with the interesting young Romanian rookie Rares Ilies on the left side and a good Mario Lemina alongside Khephren Thuram, Nice has mastered.

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But Matz Sels, like Schmeichel, is an international level goalkeeper.

He first repelled a vicious center with a rebound from Thuram (10) for a corner.

At the end of the period, he also released the good shot from Calvin Stengs, who concluded a counter initiated by Andy Delort (42nd).

At that time, the center forward of the Aiglons had already hit the mark from the penalty spot (1-0, 35th).

With a counter-foot of the right, he gave the advantage to his people following the fault, in the surface, of Gerzino Myamsi on Amine Gouiri (33rd).

After the break, however, Julien Stephan's men came back stronger.

If Schmeichel was once again decisive in front of Diallo, author of a strike at the near post (46th), he could not do anything on Gameiro's lob, perfectly launched by Adrien Thomasson (1-1, 56th).

Les Aiglons out of order, Lucien Favre simultaneously brought in Aaron Ramsey, Pablo Rosario and Bilal Brahimi (68), then Youcef Atal (75) to energize his collective.

They attacked relentlessly.

Atal, who forced Sels to a parade (83), and Ramsey led the end of the game.

Without success.

© 2022 AFP