TOPS
Gaëtan Laborde showed the way. Not really sharp at the start of this meeting, he finally recovered well by going to provoke the opposing defenders. His races created imbalances in the Monegasque block and even if he was not always served, he monopolized the attention of his opponents. Shortly before half-time, he perfectly transformed the penalty obtained by Louchet after contact with Kehrer (1-1, 37th). In the second act he had more difficulty weighing on the opposing defense.
The Swiss midfielder was imperial in the Monegasque midfield, but not only that. On a sublime strike which came to clean Bulka’s top corner, he allowed the Monegasques to quickly take the lead in this meeting (0-1, 16th). Then he went back down into the midfield to hamper the Nice offensives in this first act. Returning from the locker room, he scored another sublime goal with a perfectly uncrossed header to once again deceive the Nice goalkeeper who was unable to do anything (1-2, 50th). At the end of the match, he did not hesitate to come down to help his central hinge push back the waves from the Gym. He repeatedly clears his side in very dangerous situations in his area.
FLOPS
The German full-back had a very complicated evening. Often outpaced by his opponents, he never held a duel in depth. He provokes the Nice penalty after an avoidable foul on Louchet who had started behind him (1-1, 37th). Thilo Kehrer then lost a lot of balls (14 in total) and narrowly missed a significant number of his transmissions. He loses another ball on the outskirts of his area which could have cost his team dearly. He collected a yellow card and committed 3 fouls in this meeting.
The Brazilian was the man of this first half. With 90% successful passes and 4 balls recovered, Dante had everything to be man of the match. He misses a not obvious left-footed recovery from a corner which could have allowed his team to come back sooner. But he then made a sublime opening towards Louchet who obtained the equalizing penalty. Returning from the locker room, he did not control his commitment during a tackle on Minamino and crushed the Japanese’s shin. He received a red card which subsequently created excessive imbalances. He swung the match one way then the other in just 20 minutes.