The south of France is one of the most prestigious regions in Europe with their fine wine, the Cote d’Azur and its rich people, many tourists go to cities like Monaco and Nice for their holidays in the summer.
But it’s not just a tourist destination; the region also has a lot of football to offer, especially with Olympique Marseille, AS Monaco and OGC Nice.
Nice have been on an up-and-down trajectory over the last couple of years, alternating between fifth and ninth place over the course of the last four seasons.
The club is one of the most successful in French footballing history.
Over the last couple of years, many big-name managers have been there, including Patrick Viera, Lucien Favre, Christophe Galtier, and Francesco Farioli.
The latter managed to break into the top five of the Ligue 1 once again last season but was poached by Dutch giant Ajax Amsterdam in the summer and decided to leave the Côte dAzur after just 12 months for another opportunity.
With their coaching position vacant, OGC Nice made a move themselves and decided to poach Franck Haise from RC Lens to become their new head coach.
The 53-year-old Frenchman was the mastermind behind RC Lenss rise from Ligue 2 to the UEFA Champions League, where he even beat Arsenal in the group stage.
While the injury-plagued team lost 4-1 against Lyon this past weekend, the club still occupies sixth place in Ligue 1 but struggles immensely in the UEFA Europa League.
In this tactical analysis and team report, we will examine Franck Haises style of play so far in Nice, their attacking power, and where they need to improve over the course of the season.
OGC Nice Deep Block Into Fast Counterattacks
While this article focuses on OGC Nices rapid attacking play under Franck Haise, we still need to examine their defensive work first.
While we are splitting up the game into four phases to better understand certain situations, football is extremely fluent, even compared to other team sports, and therefore, all four phases influence and influence each other.
Nice have not had much possession this season in Ligue 1; in fact, they don’t even reach 50% in most of their games.
Still, their attack is lethal, and they have created 21.7 non-penalty expected goals so far this season in Ligue 1, which is the third-best value behind only PSG and AS Monaco.
Other teams do not have much possession of the ball and have very potent offences, but Nice are a bit different from the rest of them.
While most of these teams use a very aggressive attacking press and counterpress to win the ball back high up the pitch and have a relatively short distance to the goal, Nice play with a deep block, especially against stronger teams.
Here, we can see Nice in their block while defending.
All 11 players are working to get behind the ball, and only one striker is loosely trying to engage into a pressing situation.
Haise believes that
