After a cagey and tightly-contested first leg of their relegation play-off match at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, neither side managed to get the upper hand in a scoreless draw between Saint-Etienne and OGC Nice. Everything will be decided at Allianz Riviera, this Friday at 20:45 CET!

It was tense. It was defensive. And it was nervy. In the end, neither side got a shot on target in a match where, as the saying goes: “you can’t win the tie in the first leg, but you can lose it!” Neither side was willing to take that risk and so the final outcome remains in the balance.

Four days after Friday’s 3-1 Coupe de France final loss to Lens, Claude Puel fielded a new-look 4–2–3–1 formation. In front of Yéhvann Diouf, the defence consisted of Antoine Mendy, Juma Bah, Kojo Peprah Oppong and Melvin Bard. Hicham Boudaoui and Morgan Sanson were aligned in central midfield behind Jonathan Clauss, Sofiane Diop, Tiago Gouveia and Mohamed-Ali Cho, in attack.

In a sold-out Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, both teams looked to press high and aggressively. Hicham Boudaoui bore the brunt, victim of an accidental shoulder charge, he was replaced by Charles Vanhoutte in just the 11th minute. However, the pace soon dropped in this penultimate match of the season.

Cardona (10’), Sanson (17’) and Clauss (25’) all failed to test the goals being defended by Saint-Étienne’s Larsonneur and Nice’s Diouf. With everything at stake, both teams received a helping hand from VAR. Oppong was initially adjudged to have conceded a dangerous free-kick on the edge of the box, before the referee, with the help of VAR for a potential penalty, ruled there was no foul (37’). At the other end, it was the same Nice defender who thought he had won a penalty after contact from a high boot from Lucas Stassin at a corner. But Benoît Bastien ruled there was no foul (41’), showing great consistency from one incident to the next.

With both solid defences well and truly on top, this first leg of the play-off restarted in a similar vein after the break, despite Gouveia being replaced by Abdi. Both teams struggled to carve out clear-cut chances. Les Verts tried their luck on several occasions (58’, 61’, 66’) without success. Les Aiglons, without the attacking threat of the suspended Wahi, were no more inspired. In the end, there was not a single shot on target in the match for either side.

OGC Nice will go in search of their Ligue 1 survival this Friday at 20:45 at Allianz Riviera; a match that – for the moment – will be played behind closed doors (a decision to be confirmed following an official appeal from Les Rouge et Noir).