Lyon erupts for two goals in six minutes, holds on with ten men to beat Nice 2-1

Six minutes of madness between the 31st and 35th turned around a match that Nice had started winning, and Lyon ended up hanging on with ten men and a late VAR scare to claim a 2-1 win at the Groupama Stadium.

Nice took to the pitch in better form and showed it quickly: in the 17th minute, Elye Wahi finished with his right foot from the center of the box, low and inside the left post, after a cross from Jonathan Clauss. The 0-1 seemed to set up the afternoon for the visitors, who had also created the first dangerous chances. But Lyon answered with a one two punch that changed the entire match.

In the 31st minute, Pavel Sulc equalized from close range, also with his right foot and low, inside the left post, on a play that came after an earlier shot from Julien Duranville that the Nice goalkeeper had managed to stop. Four minutes later, in the 35th, Tanner Tessmann headed in the 2-1, down the middle of the goal, finishing off a cross from Zachary Athekame that originated from a set piece. In barely six minutes, Lyon had gone from trailing to taking the lead, and that was the score at halftime.

The second half: holding on with ten men

The second half was a different story. Nice pressed relentlessly: Axel Witsel smashed a header off the crossbar in the 52nd minute, and between corner kicks and shots from outside the box (Nkounkou, Boudaoui, Amoura), the visiting side gained ground in the match, though without finding the equalizer.

The harshest blow for Lyon came in the 69th minute: Keito Nakamura, who had come on as a substitute just nine minutes earlier, was shown a red card. Down a man, the home side spent the rest of the match defending the lead. Nice kept trying until the end: Wahi headed off the post in the 73rd minute, and Isak Jansson forced a big save in the 87th. The biggest scare came in the 92nd minute, already in stoppage time, when Wahi thought he had scored the equalizer, but VAR disallowed the goal and confirmed the score would stay at 2-1.

What the numbers say

The stats reflect an even match, with Nice carrying slightly more of the weight of play, especially after the red card:

The corner count, 9 to 1 in favor of Nice, makes clear how much time the visiting side spent camped in Lyon's half, especially in the second half. As for the match's estimated xG, calculated from shot locations, it came out nearly even: 1.46 for Lyon versus 1.49 for Nice, a reflection of how tight the contest was in terms of chance creation, even though the scoreline ended up favoring the home side.

The preview had projected a clear favorite in Lyon, with a 64% chance of a home win compared to 13% for Nice and 23% for a draw, along with expected goals of 2.03 for Lyon against 0.82 for Nice. The final result, a tight 2-1 with a Nice side that ended up nearly snatching a draw even while playing a man up for half an hour, came closer to matching a script that anticipated a hard fought home win than a comfortable stroll.

What the standings show

With this result, Lyon reaches 14 points from 7 matches played, with a record of 4 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, and shares the top of the table with Paris Saint-Germain, Paris FC, Lille and Monaco, all also on 14 points. Nice, meanwhile, remains on 8 points, with 2 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses in the same number of matches, a 6 point gap behind Lyon at this stage of Ligue 1.

Lyon takes home all three points, but also a notable absence for its next match following Nakamura's red card, while Nice leaves with the feeling of having deserved more, especially after that goal disallowed in the dying seconds of the match.