Paris Saint Germain vs. Nice: Preview and betting tips

The Coupe de France pitted Paris Saint Germain and Nice against each other in the eighth round. These are the top two teams in France in terms of current position in the table, with PSG in first place and Nice in second. So we can expect an interesting match.

Paris Saint Germain lead the French Ligue 1 with 53 points. This season, the Parisians have tasted the bitterness of defeat only once, they have won 16 times and drawn 5 times in the league. They have won three of their last five matches and drawn two.

PSG have scored 46 goals and conceded 18 in the league. The top scorer is Kylian Mbappé, who has scored 10 goals in the league and added five more in the cup, where he only needed two games to do so.

The Parisian side beat Feignies-Aulnoye 3-0 in their first cup match. In the next match they saw off Vannes 4: 0, Mbappé scoring three times. He now faces Nice in the eighth round.

The second team in Ligue 1, Nice, is 11 points behind leader PSG. However, they have not dropped a point in their last five games. Nice have scored 36 times and received 18 goals. The top scorers here include Amine Gouiri, who has scored 10 goals in the league, and Andy Delort, who has 8 goals.

Nice have played just one game in the cup so far. It managed to beat Cholet by a very narrow margin. It was a single goal that secured a 1-0 win for Nice.

Of PSG’s star strike trio of Messi, Neymar and Mbappé, only the young Frenchman is likely to appear in the match. The Argentine is weakened by a coronavirus and the Brazilian has an ankle injury.

However, these are not all the players who will be unavailable for PSG. Coach Pochettino has to deal with the absence of goalkeepers Navas and Donnarumma. Furthermore, Hakimi, Gueye, Di Maria, Paredes and Marquinhos are missing. For some players the reason is injury, for others it is national team commitments.

The absence of Nice players is not that big and this may play into their hands. PSG go into this game as favourites but are missing a lot of key players. There will have to be some youngsters in goal and other positions won’t be the best that Paris usually have at their disposal.

Nice is a big underdog for most bookmakers, but we think they can surprise PSG team unpleasantly. They are losing a lot of points in the league, but if they win here they will be one of the favourites to win the cup.