Spoils shared between Paris and Nice

The Côte d'Azur had a distinctly European feel to it this evening, as it played host to a mouth-watering encounter between Paris Saint-Germain and another of French football's representatives on the continental stage, OGC Nice. Having headed down to the south coast with a healthy squad to choose from, Luis Enrique put out a hybrid 4-3-3 formation for this game, with a front three of Ousmane Dembélé, Randal Kolo Muani and Bradley Barcola.

Against a side renowned for the attack-minded philosophy instilled in them by manager Franck Haise, a high-quality clash was always on the cards tonight, and galvanised by their fans, Les Aiglons looked to back Paris into a corner in the first half, with Evann Guessand testing the visitors' rearguard in the fifth minute, before Mohamed-Ali Cho was denied by the imperial Gigio Donnarumma shortly before the quarter-hour mark.

After weathering this early storm, Les Rouge et Bleu began to gain the ascendancy more and more with every passing minute, as they kept the Nice defence on red alert with their forward balls. During this dominant phase, Barcola's 27th-minute shot across goal deserved a better fate than to be cleared off the line by Youssouf Ndayishimiye, while Nuno Mendes tested former Paris keeper Marcin Bułka with a fine half-volley from the edge of the box just over ten minutes later.

Both sides seemed to be lacking that little slice of luck in the penalty area, although it was Les Niçois who eventually struck first in this respect. In a chaotic passage of play, Ali Abdi saw his shot take a deflection and end up in the back of the net (1-0, 39') to round off a frustrating opening 45' for Paris, but it wasn't enough to make Enrique's men stray from their guiding principle.

Determined to step things up a notch after the interval, Les Parisiens came back out with an even more attacking mindset, spurred by Enrique's decision to bring Lee Kang-in into the game as a false nine. A few minutes later, Dembélé provided an instant second-half threat as he laid the ball off to Mendes, whose powerful, right-footed strike found its target (1-1, 52'). Les Rouge et Bleu's cutting edge almost gave them the lead shortly afterwards, but Marquinhos's header instead crashed against the post.

Even though the game had been a close one up until this point, the final half-hour provided even more end-to-end entertainment, particularly after Vitinha came off the bench and into the engine room for Paris. The capital club continued to put moves together patiently as they looked for a way through, combining training-ground routines with the speed of both Barcola and Dembélé as soon as a gap opened up. Vitinha almost took advantage of a superb turn of pace from Barcola with a quarter of an hour left to play, but despite the Paris players giving it their all, though, the score would remain the same.

Following a hard-fought encounter in which they had aimed to give themselves one final boost before the international break, Paris Saint-Germain nonetheless continued their excellent unbeaten run by coming away with a point from their clash with a valiant Nice side at what is a notoriously tricky place to visit. Les Rouge et Bleu will now be looking forward to being back in front of their fans on Saturday 19th October, when they are due to host RC Strasbourg.