OGC Nice suffered a 4-1 home defeat at the hands of Rangers in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday. Badredine Bouanani scored a late consolation goal for Le Gym with a direct free-kick.

Nothing went Le Gym’s way on Thursday night, as Les Rouge et Noir were beaten by a more experienced Rangers side, sitting tenth in the standings at kick-off, in Matchday 5 of the Europa League. Without a number of first-team regulars through injury and with Moïse Bombito and Sofiane Diop suspended, Franck Haise, had no choice but to go with a new-look starting XI.

As Issiaga Camara started just the second match of his career on the European stage, and Yaël Nandjou and Iliesse Salhi made their professional debuts, the young Aiglons gave it their best, but just lacked the necessary experience on the continental stage.

SCOTTISH EFFICIENCY

Le Gym actually made a bright start. In a 4-3-1-2 formation with Badredine Bouanani supporting the duo of Youssoufa Moukoko and Gaëtan Laborde in attack, Les Niçois looked to land the first blow, as Bad’s powerful effort flashed just a few centimetres wide of Jack Butland's post (5'). Moments later, Pablo Rosario and his teammates thought they had won a penalty after a goal-mouth scramble which saw Tom Louchet's shot was pushed away by Butland, and the referee Mr. De Burgos reviewed three separate situations in the box with VAR before overturning his initial decision (6’).

Les Aiglons suffered their first blow when their captain for the evening, Youssouf Ndayishimiye, was forced off with a right thigh injury (19’). The second came a few minutes later. Vaclav Cerny took advantage of a poor clearance by Nice's defence to take his chance from the edge of the area. The Czech international saw his shot deflected twice as it wrong-footed Marcin Bulka (0-1, 35').

Stunned by the opening goal, Franck Haise's men were dealt another blow when Mohamed Diomandé took advantage of a misunderstanding between Rosario and Bułka to double their lead (0-2, 38'). And although Laborde thought he had rekindled the home side’s hopes only to see Butland  save his header (43’), the third goal of the game was scored by Rangers and Hamza Igamane, who was well placed to take advantage of a back-pass from Mohamed Abdelmonem (0-3, 45+3’).

NO LUCK

Determined to fightback, Les Rouge et Noir created some good chances early in the second half. Boosted by the introduction of Tanguy Ndombele, they first thought they had scored through Laborde, whose side-foot effort skimmed the outside of Butland's post (49’), and then through Boudaoui, who was denied by yet another save from the English ‘keeper (52’).

And just as nothing seemed to be going right for Les Aiglons, they conceded a fourth goal from Philippe Clément's side’s fourth shot on target. Igamane took advantage of another loose pass (0-4, 54').

Bouanani's first goal for Nice

Still Nice refused to give up and Badredine Bouanani and his teammates fought to reduce the deficit right to the end. The Algerian international was finally rewarded with his first goal for Nice. Ideally placed on the edge of the box, the Lille native curled his free-kick straight into the top corner (1-4, 83').

Despite a first home defeat of the season, the young home side can still hold their heads high. Currently sitting 35th in the league phase, Le Gym has three games left to try and save their European season. The first is in two weeks’ time in Belgium against Union Saint-Gilloise (12/12, at 18:45).

Hugo Rondet