The Allianz Riviera found its voice late on Sunday as Nice turned a deficit into a 2-1 win over Strasbourg, sealing a second successive Ligue 1 home victory after beating Lille by the same score on 20 September.
Jonathan Clauss delivered the decisive strike in the 81st minute after an improved second-half display from Olivier Pantaloni’s side. Nice had fallen behind to Dario Essugo’s low right-footed finish four minutes before the interval, but were level in stoppage time of the first half when Strasbourg midfielder Pape Demba Diop headed Gauthier Hein’s curling cross into his own net.
The result lifted Nice above Strasbourg in the table and halted the Alsatians after their 2-1 defeat away to Paris FC on 19 September. It also brought together two sides at opposite ends of Ligue 1’s early scoring spectrum: Strasbourg had been involved in 20 goals across five rounds, with 10 scored and 10 conceded, while Nice’s previous matches had produced only nine, three for and six against.
For much of the opening half, the contrast was not immediately apparent. Strasbourg created the clearer early openings, with Conrad Harder and Samuel Amo-Ameyaw both denied by Nice goalkeeper Yehvann Diouf. The visitors then appeared to have made their breakthrough when Harder, making his first league start of the season, set up Essugo for a precise effort along the ground in the 41st minute. It was also the Portuguese midfielder’s first start of the campaign.
Nice had already been forced into a change by then. Seventeen-year-old midfielder Djibril Coulibaly, struggling with fatigue, was replaced in the 37th minute by Algeria international Hicham Boudaoui. The substitute’s energy, aggression and technical quality helped alter the rhythm after the break.
Nice take control after the interval
With Boudaoui increasingly influential, the home side began to pin Strasbourg back. Filip Jörgensen produced a high-class double save to keep out efforts from Axel Witsel in the 51st minute and Mohammed Amoura two minutes later, while Wahi also went close on 59 minutes.
The pressure finally told nine minutes from time. Clauss, who had thrown himself fully into the contest, struck the winner to complete Nice’s comeback and send the stadium into celebration at the final whistle. Strasbourg, so often involved in open and high-scoring contests this season, left the Côte d’Azur having surrendered both their lead and their place above Nice.
