[FM22] OGC Nice - Nice to see you, to see you Nice

[Ewan0404]

OGC Nice were founded in 1904 on the French Riviera and as such were one of the founding members of the first division of French Football. The club have won Ligue 1 fours times, the Trophee des Champions once and the Coupe de France three times. Most of these honours were achieved in the 1950’s:

Ligue 1 (4): 1950–51, 1951–52, 1955–56, 1958–59

Coupe de France (3): 1951–52, 1953–54, 1996–97

Trophee des Champions: 1970

The clubs main rivals are Marseille (Sud Derby) and Monaco (Derby de la Côte d'Azur), my first aim will be to become the biggest club on the French Riviera before trying to take on PSG.

Reasons for playing as OGC Nice

A modern stadium which will help generate a large income from a loyal fan base

It's a challenge to try and compete with the bigger sides in the league in the first few seasons

The club in general look a very exciting prospect with a mix of young talent and some older experienced players

Goals

Short-term:

Solidify OGC as a European side

Sell out the 36,178 seater Allianz Riviera stadium on a regular basis

Long-term:

Challenge PSG for the league title

Overtake Marseille and Monaco as the most successful team in the Riviera.

 

I will have a look at my squad and post my transfers in the next update. I hope you are all looking forward to joining this journey with myself.

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Nice to see another French save on these forums. Good luck!

[Matt_1979]

Excellent. Had a very enjoyable save with Nice in FM21. Good luck. 

[SteinkelssonFM]

What a team, OGC were my main save in FM21. A thoroughly enjoyable experience, all the best. 

[Ewan0404]

17 hours ago, DefinitelyTaylor said:

Nice to see another French save on these forums. Good luck!

 

12 hours ago, Matt_1979 said:

Excellent. Had a very enjoyable save with Nice in FM21. Good luck. 

 

2 hours ago, MattyLewis11 said:

What a team, OGC were my main save in FM21. A thoroughly enjoyable experience, all the best. 

Thanks guys. Not managed in France for a long time so hoping it's a good run. 

 

[john1]

Good luck I am also managing in France with AS Saint-Étienne  

[Ewan0404]

Squad Analysis

I have spent a few hours today analysing my squad to see where we are before the new season kicks off. This will be ongoing during the pre-season friendlies and training but the initial thoughts are detailed below.

 

Marcin Bulka – 21 – Back up goalkeeper on loan from PSG with an option to buy for £240k. He will get a run in the cup games and will stand in when called upon.

Teddy Boulhendi – 20 – Third choice this season and will primarily play for the reserve side or will be sent out on loan if a reasonable enough side would take him as first choice.

Walter Benitez – 28 – First choice goalkeeper and club vice-captain who has been at the club since 2016. He will continue to be our first choice for the foreseeable future unless we can sign someone much better.

Robson Bambu – 23 – Young Brazilian centre back who will cover for the first choice pairing with the potential to stake a claim to a starting spot from next season.

Dante – 37 – The thirteen time capped Brazilian is the first name on the team sheet and the club captain. Given his age this may be his last campaign as a starter so hopefully he can lead us to something special.

Flavius Daniliuc – 20 – A versatile defender who can play at centre back or at right back. He will be looking to try and force his way into the starting line-up this year.

Hassane Kamara – 27 – An experience left sided player who can play up and down the pitch. Will be a rotational option but with his high work rate and team work he will be more than happy to take t the pitch whenever and wherever.

Youcef Atal – 25 – Similar to Kamara in that he can play all the way up and down the right hand side if needed. He will be  one of the main players we look to build our play around this season.

Jordan Lotomba – 22 – Even more versatile that Kamara and Atal on that he can play up and down both flanks. He won’t start many games, but his versatility means he will get a lot of minutes off the bench when needed.

Jean-Clair Tobido – 21 – The young centre back will be partnering Dante at the back. His physicals mean he will be great from set pieces when attacking and his pace means he will be able to cover for any lapses from Dante.

Melvin Bard – 20 – The young defender is a new recruit from Lyon and he will be given the chance to make the left back slot his own this season.

Morgan Schneiderlin – 31 – The most experienced players in the midfield will be looking to hold onto a place amongst the younger team members when he returns from injury on 6-8 weeks.

Pablo Rosario – 24 – The box-to-box midfielder will be a definite starter this season and I will look to him to be the workhorse in the centre of the pitch.

Mario Lemina – 27 – The ball winner will be used to shield the defence and work alongside Rosario to form a solid pairing in the middle of the park.

Khéphren Thuram – 20 – The son of World Cup winner Lillian and younger brother of Marcus will be looking to make a name for himself out of their shadow. It could be a tough ask for the central midfielder to force his way into the side.

Hicham Boudaoui – 21 – Another central midfielder with the potential to be a great box-to-box player in the future, he may struggle for game time this season so may need to look for a loan move to get the minutes needed to progress.

Lucas Da Cunha – 20 – The left footed winger can play on either side and this versatility should see him play a lot of minutes this season, even if not necessarily as a starter.

Andy Delort – 29 -The new signing scored 15 goals last season for Montpellier in 30 matches and we will be hoping he can find that sort of form for us this season to meet our aspirations.

Kasper Dolberg – 23 – The young Danish striker will likely partner Delort up front if we play with to strikers and I will be hoping they can create a formidable partnership quickly.

Alexis Claude-Maurice – 23 – The young lad can play anywhere along the attacking line and its just a shame that he will miss the first 3 months of the season. He will be given plenty of chances to prove himself once he is fit again.

Amine Gouri – 21 – The young forward will be one that we look to build our squad around for years to come. Either playing up front or on the wing I am expecting big things from the French U21.

Dan Ndoye – 20 – Away on loan so we wont comment on him this season.

Justin Kluivert – 22 – On loan from Roma with an option to buy for £12m I will be looking to him for his pace and flair to create some magic on the park on a regular basis.

Calvin Stengs – 22 – The young Dutch winger will be very similar to Kluivert and we will look to the two of them to create chances out of nowhere.

Evan Guessand – 20 – The young striker will not play much this season and we may look to loan him out right away.

 

Overall Thoughts

I feel we are well placed to build a brilliant squad with this young group of players, however there may be too many young players in the squad and a lack of experience all over the pitch. Time will tell and we will now delve into the transfer market to try and strengthen the squad.

[Ewan0404]

Transfers and Season Preview

Overall as seen from my squad analysis post I feel like we have a squad capable of achieving our aims of qualifying for Europe this season. But as always a few new additions can always help boost your chances that little bit further. The board trusted me with a transfer budget of just under £13 million, not the biggest budget in the country but enough that I feel I could bring in additions to the squad in the areas I feel we need some added depth.

Transfers In

Hatem Ben Arfa - Our first signing sees Hatem return to the club on a free transfer. Previously playing for the club in the 2015-16 season, Hatem scored 17 goals in 34 Ligue 1 appearances to help the club finish 4th. This season was arguably his greatest ever season as professional player as his next highest goal scoring season was for Stade Rennais three seasons later where he scored 7 goals. Hatem has always been a player who many believe never reached his full potential, we hope that he can reproduce some of the form shown in his previous spell here. 

Matías Arezo - Our next signing was that of the young Uruguayan striker Arezo for a fee of £1.5m, potentially rising to £2.6m depending on how he performs for us over the next few seasons. Joining from Club Atlético River Plate there is a lot of pressure on the young man as he makes his first foray into European football as many in his homeland are touting him as the next Fernando Morena, the legendary striker who scored 268 league goals in their native Uruguay. Arezo may not be a regular starter this season as he adapts to a new country and culture but big things are expected from him in the future.

Malang Saar - Saar arrives on a season long loan from Chelsea with an option to buy for £9m at any point during the season. The young centre back of left back is another former OGC Nice player signed in this window and is a local lad through and through. We are delighted to bring back such a talented and homegrown talent. He will be the perfect rotation option with Dante as a left footed centre back in the squad.  

Toni Lato - Another loan signing with an option to buy the young Spaniard will battle it out with Melvin Bard this season to try and nail down the left back slot within the side. Lato was signed with 15 minutes left on deadline day and we were nervous the deal would not be signed in time. The young defender jumped at the chance to try and stake a place in a starting line up after only playing 14 times in the last two seasons (4 games for parent club Valencia, 2 games for Jong PSV an 8 games for Osasuna)

 

Transfers Out

Hassane Kamara - Hassane made it clear he wanted to depart the club as soon as reigning French champions LOSC Lille came in for him. We managed to negotiate a fee of £5.25m for the full back. We are sorry to lose him but with Bard and Lato as the left backs in the squad, as well as Saar being able to cover there, we feel we can cover the void in this area of the pitch.

Season Preview

To meet the boards aim of qualifying for the Europa League I will need to get into the top 5 this season or win the Coupe de France for the first time since the 1996-97 season. This could be an achievable target but it will be a fight right to the end of the season as realistically PSG will win the league and then there are around 8 clubs battling it out for the remaining European slots.

The hard work begins now.

[weeewanmac77]

Excellent write up Ewan. 

[DaveMUFC]

Interesting to see the changes compared to beta. 

I started a save when I kicked off the beta and I'm in March atm, although Bard, Guessand and Cunha are all out on loan at Lausanne at the start, and think I had half your starting budget! 

[SteinkelssonFM]

Lausanne, the perfect pathway club to develop youth prior to testing them out in Ligue One. 

Make sure you keep close tabs on Parsemain, despite his three star potential ability (FM21) he developed into a very clinical striker for me. 

[Jogo Bonito]

Nice () squad review & transfer activity, enjoy yourself on the sunny coast.

[Ewan0404]

8 hours ago, MattyLewis11 said:

Lausanne, the perfect pathway club to develop youth prior to testing them out in Ligue One. 

Make sure you keep close tabs on Parsemain, despite his three star potential ability (FM21) he developed into a very clinical striker for me. 

I will keep an eye on him 😉

[Tommo_]

12 hours ago, MattyLewis11 said:

Lausanne, the perfect pathway club to develop youth prior to testing them out in Ligue One. 

Make sure you keep close tabs on Parsemain, despite his three star potential ability (FM21) he developed into a very clinical striker for me. 

Completely agree with what @MattyLewis11 says here. 

I'd love to see how you use Lausanne and RC Abidjan (I think) you feeder club in Ivory Coast. Huge opportunity there for a amazing development pathway system.

[john1]

Good luck with Nice  

[Ewan0404]

Thanks for all the support guys. I'll be doing in game monthly updates with the first one tonight. 

I will keep you posted on the feeder clubs aswell. 

[Ewan0404]

August

We picked up nine points from our first three games which was as good start as I could have imagined this season. Losing 2-1 to the defending French champions LOSC Lille was gutting but at the same time we battled hard and I am not too disappointed at the end of the day. Our wins against Stade Remis, and Girondins Bordeaux were a great way to begin and end the month. The big result however was our win over our South coast rivals Marseille, in a fairly even affair the only goal of the game came from a thundering shot from outside the box courtesy of Lemina.

Player of the Month

Our best player this month was of course Andy Delort after scoring 4 goals in the opening 4 games. We will be hoping he keeps up his scoring form and showing the younger forwards in the squad how its done.

League Table

We start the season with minus one point due to crowd disruption.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Ewan0404

[weeewanmac77]

Same again next month mate!!! 

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Good start. 

[Ewan0404]

September

A very mixed bag this month with two losses followed by two wins. The first match of the month against Nantes was a tough one to take as this is a side we really should be beating, no offense to them. The home loss to Monaco was a much tighter affair that the score line suggested, we were the better side according to xG but two late goals flattered the away side. We followed these losses up with two fairly comfortable wins which thankfully helped us keep pace with the other sides in the European places.

Player of the Month

Andy Delort picks up the award against thanks to his goal and assist in the win against Lorient. His striker brings his total to five goals and an assist in his eight appearances so far. This keeps him as the joint top scorer alongside Lille's Jonathan David in the early stages of the season.

League Table

[Ewan0404]

October

A great month for us where we picked up 10 points from a possible 12. We started off with two routine wins against Stade Brestois and Estac Troyes by scoring six with no reply over the two games. Next up we had Olympique Lyon who are one of our big rivals for European spots this season. Todibo's own goal in the 84 minute had us thinking it was going to be a dropped three points but then Dolberg managed to find himself with nobody marking him in the six yard box to slot home a Delort cut back to share the spoils. Our final game of the month saw us hold on to a win despite nearly blowing a three goal lead in the final 20 minutes.

Player of the Month

The best player this month was Amine Gouri who managed to score three times and set up a further goal for the side. He also picked up the goal of the month with his strike against Angers. He is one of the young players we will look to build the side around if we can keep a hold of him.

League Table

[weeewanmac77]

Great run Ewan 

[SteinkelssonFM]

When are you looking to provide the next update?