To mark the tenth anniversary of the Allianz Riviera, OGC Nice's media team is bringing you a stat a day about our stadium. We start with a focus on the number of official matches played in the Plaine du Var.

When Nice take on Brest on Sunday 1 October, OGC Nice will be playing on the Allianz Riviera pitch in an official match for the 217th time.

216 matches already!

The 216 previous matches are divided between 186 Ligue 1 matches, 18 European matches and 12 national cup matches (seven in the Coupe de France and five in the Coupe de la Ligue, a competition that was discontinued in 2020).

Record set in 2017-18

Leaving aside the current season (three matches), two seasons have seen fewer than 20 matches: the first (19, the season having started at the Stade du Ray) and the 2019-20 season, truncated due to the Covid pandemic (just 17 matches).

It's the European appearances that drive up the tally. During the 2017-18 season, Le Gym fans packed the arena in Saint-Isidore 26 times, including on six European evenings, with gala matches against Ajax (Third qualifying round of the Champions League) and Napoli (Champions League play-offs) and four Europa League fixtures (Vitesse Arnhem, Lazio, Zulte-Waregem in the group stage, Lokomotiv Moscow in the round of 16).

Just behind that, we have the 2022-23 season, with 19 L1 matches added to the six Conference League battles (Tel-Aviv, Cologne, Slovacko, Partizan Belgrade, Sheriff Tiraspol and Basel).

Number of official matches at the Allianz Riviera, season by season 

2013-14 : 19

2014-15 : 20

2015-16 : 20 

2016-17 : 22

2017-18 : 26

2018-19 : 21

2019-20 : 17

2020-21 : 23

2021-22 : 20

2022-23 : 25 

2023-24 : 3

 

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