The first day back for the Gym’s reserves. On Monday 10 July, Laurent Bonadei’s squad, who will participate in the brand new N2 this season, retook to the pitch, kicking-off their pre-season. After kitting themselves out, the young Aiglons headed to the pitches of la Plaine, opposite the new training ground, to get back to work.

“It’s a pleasure to be back with the youngsters, explained the coach. I have found them in-form; the holidays have been good for them. We are beginning a new season, but not on a blank page, because in order to progress, you need to know how to use the good and the not so good things that have happened in the past. Most of the players have already been at the club for many years, so they know what we ask of them. They know that pre-season is always a very important period for the rest of the season, so they are applied, invested in their work and concentrated.”

Mini-tournament at the end of July

And the team’s schedule has already been well established with huge precision. Outside of training, the first friendly is planned for Wednesday 19 July against Etoile Fréjus/St-Raphaël, at home. This will be followed by friendlies against Grasse (22 July), Hyères (26 July), Monaco (2 August) and Cannes (5 August). Tests that will be broken up by a mini-trip to Auvergne. “There is a tournament for professional reserve side at the end of the month, Bonadei continued. We will leave on 28 July and will come back on the 31 July, which will allow us to spend 4 days together and we can see it as a mini-pre-season trip. We will have the chance to work on cohesion and to put in some extra medium-length games against sides that don’t feature in our league, which will let us evaluate ourselves and change things. With us, there will be the reserves of Auxerre, Sochaux, Reims, Orléans and Amiens, split into two groups of 3: it will be interesting to compare ourselves with other groups.”

Jour de rentrée pour la réserve du club #Formation pic.twitter.com/g43KEgFbsh

— OGC Nice (@ogcnice) 10 juillet 2017

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