Christophe Galtier at Nice 2021/22: The key roles and tactics behind Les Aiglons’ ‘winning culture’ – tactical analysis

After winning Ligue 1 with Lille last season, pipping PSG to the title by just one point, Christophe Galtier embarked on a new challenge for 2021/22 when he took charge of a Nice side that finished the previous campaign in ninth place after a turbulent campaign in which current boss of EPL side Crystal Palace Patrick Vieira was sacked as manager before being replaced by Adrian Ursea until the end of the campaign.

Under the reigning French top-flight-winning manager Galtier, Nice currently sit in third place in Ligue 1, a UEFA Champions League qualification spot, level on points and goal difference with Marseille in second — an impressive jump from where they ended last season.

Following his achievements throughout his managerial career, particularly those which have come within the last 12 months, Galtier’s reputation and status within the game has grown considerably. French football journalist Florent Gautreau recently described the Nice boss and his coaching achievements as “remarkable”, while one of Les Aiglons’ summer signings, Mario Lemina who joined from Southampton in the EPL, was full of praise for his 55-year-old coach recently, with the two-time Serie A-winning midfielder declaring that Galtier has fostered a “winning culture” at Allianz Riviera.

Galtier’s achievements throughout his managerial career, from his lengthy tenure at Saint-Étienne to his title-winning stint at Lille to his current promising spell as Nice boss have made him one of the most highly-rated managers in France, with the Nice boss even getting linked with being Didier Deschamps’ successor at the French national team in recent weeks.

Plenty was written about Galtier’s tenure as Lille manager and his tactics during that time here at Total Football Analysis, but this tactical analysis piece focuses on the 55-year-old’s thus far impressive first season in charge at Allianz Riviera. I’ve picked out four key areas I’d like to focus on with Galtier’s Nice that I hope will give you a better idea of Galtier’s general ideas and vision for the team, style of play, and philosophy within the context of this Nice side and the individual qualities each player brings to the table.

The goalkeeper’s important role in the build-up

To kick off this analysis, I’ll be taking a look at the role that the goalkeeper, usually Walter Benítez, has to play in Galtier’s side. Nice aren’t an extremely possession-based side under Galtier, retaining an average of 50.5% possession in the league this season which ranks them above average but not by much. However, they do generally like to build their attacks fairly patiently at the beginning of the build-up phase. Benítez has an important role to play in this, as he needs to be calm and cool under pressure with the ball at his feet while also possessing enough technical ability to adequately find teammates with his passes, ideally while breaking lines and sending his team forward in the process, or at least playing the pass that puts a teammate in a good position to play that line-breaking pass with the next move.

This is an area in which Benítez has done quite well and been very comfortable in Galtier’s system in 2021/22. The 29-year-old ‘keeper needs to be comfortable when involved in deep phases of possession and actively drawing pressure from the opposition to create more space behind those players for higher-positioned teammates to take advantage of.

Figure 1 shows an example of an occasion when Benítez was used centrally in the build-up phase for the purpose of attracting opposition bodies further upfield to create space to exploit behind them. Firstly, just before this image, Nice’s right centre-back here, Danilo Barbosa, played the ball back to Benítez from a slightly higher position than we see him currently occupying after he came under some pressure from an opposition player who also blocked his forward passing lanes. Benítez is very good at taking up helpful positions in such situations to offer his teammates an outlet should forward passes be impossible, while he’s also very good at receiving passes under pressure, controlling the ball well, getting it out of his feet and setting up his next move. In this case, that next move was a pass back to Danilo, who has now dropped to a slightly deeper position, at right centre-back.

This is where we pick things up in figure 1 and we can see from this image that this little exchange between Danilo and Benítez created a lot of space behind the opposition’s two pressing forwards for Nice’s midfielders to potentially exploit. The midfielders get this opportunity a few seconds later as Danilo finds a way to squeeze the ball past the nearest pressing forward and send the ball into midfield, finding the feet of holding midfielder, Pablo Rosario. If Benítez weren’t so positionally aware to make good passing angles for his teammate and not technical enough to receive so well under pressure and find his teammate well with the subsequent pass, then this exchange could’ve gone a lot differently so it’s clear how the ‘keeper’s mental and technical abilities are crucial in Galtier’s plans to draw opposition players upfield to exploit space as it opens up behind them.