After having been virtually qualified for 77 minutes, the Aiglons conceded the goal of the equalizer at the end of the match, Thursday, before cracking in extra time (1-2).
The regrets will be immense for OGC Nice. Hooked late in the first leg in Switzerland (2-2), the Aiglons had done everything well on the return, Thursday, April 20, by taking their advantage in the score, acquired by Gaëtan Laborde at the start of the match, until the 85th minute. And everything collapsed, with a defeat in overtime (1-2).
Harmless for most of the match, the Swiss relied on a Frenchman to offer themselves hope. Five minutes from time, Jean-Kévin Augustin came to shoot Kasper Schmeichel to wake up the people of Basel. Pushed into overtime, the Niçois could never recover and finally cracked on a header from Kasim Adams (98th). There is no longer a French representative in the European Cup this season.
However, everything had started well for the men of Didier Digard. Very little worried by the reckless Swiss until the last quarter of an hour, they had put the commitment and the seriousness necessary to maintain their short advantage obtained by Laborde on a blocked shot (9th). Terem Moffi, double scorer in the first leg, could even, and should, have benefited from a penalty on the hour of play for a sole from Andy Pelmard, but the VAR decided otherwise.
Moffi frustrated, Augustin changed everything
A fact of the game ultimately heavy with consequences, which made the Azureans retreat, then much more discreet, apart from an acrobatic gesture from Laborde. Undoubtedly won over by the excitement seeing the qualification waver, they opened a mental breach in which engulfed Basel. Augustin (85th), then Kasim Adams (98th) on a boxed header against an overly passive Nice defense, took it upon themselves to bury the hopes of the Gym. The face-to-face badly negotiated by Nicolas Pépé (94th) and the crossbar found by Billal Brahimi (108th) on a free kick only accentuated the frustration of Nice.
In the hard in the league (six games without a win), Nice thought to afford the first European semi-final in its history and why not save its season in addition to the French UEFA index. Nothing will happen. Le Gym, already struggling in Ligue 1 (9th), cruelly ends its adventure in C4 and returns to its studies.
Basel will challenge Fiorentina in the last four, which was hot against the Poles of Lech Poznan (4-1, 2-3). The other semi-final will see AZ Alkmaar and West Ham go head-to-head. A meeting that could be very expensive in the distance duel for the UEFA index between France (5th) and the Netherlands (6th).