Happy and relieved, the CommanDante gave his final reaction as captain of Le Gym after securing their top-flight status against Saint-Etienne (4-1).

“I’m overcome with the emotion of staying up,” said the legend. “As for the last match of my career, to be honest, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I’m relieved because it was so important to us, the whole team, to keep the club in Ligue 1. For the staff, for our supporters, for the city. Nice doesn’t belong in Ligue 2. We got the job done. I’m proud of it all.  I hope the fans can enjoy it as much as possible so they can forget this very difficult season for a while. The toughest season of my career? You could say so, because there were injuries. When you’re 42, you don’t have the same resources as before. You want to help, but you can’t. It was tough, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. I’m proud of all of this. Both myself and the team never gave up. We saw it through to the end and achieved our goal.”

“It hurts that we haven’t been able to share a moment of joy with our fans this season,” he concluded. “We’ve had some difficult times, and this would have been the perfect moment to embrace them, to celebrate, to sing with them. That’s just how it is. I hope that next year they’ll have plenty of moments to celebrate and that they’ll be happy. Tonight, I really want to savour what we’ve achieved on the pitch, and thank the fans and the club staff. They’ve given me a real buzz and made me very happy over the last 10 years. I’m not perfect, but they can be sure I’ve given my all for the club. Today, I’m very happy to be leaving the club where I found it.”

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