OGC Nice stayed up with force on Sunday, beating AS Saint-Étienne 4-1 in the second leg of the French League relegation play-off to secure their place in Ligue 1 for the 2026/27 season. Elye Wahi scored twice, with Clauss and Boudache also on target as Nice turned a tense night into a comfortable finish.
That result mattered because it settled the question Nice had been carrying into the final match of the season: whether the club would remain in the French top flight. For the 25th consecutive season, they will, and Wahi was at the center of it after returning to lead the line and delivering the kind of performance that made the difference.
The game had not looked so straightforward at the start. Played behind closed doors, it opened with Saint-Étienne creating real danger, and they even thought they had gone ahead when Cardona headed in during the first half of the opening stages. The celebration did not last. After a VAR review, the goal was disallowed because Stassin had been offside in the build-up, and Nice escaped another scare soon after when Stassin sent a shot just over Diouf’s goal.
Nice, though, kept finding moments of their own. Wahi struck the post from close range, Clauss saw a shot blocked, and Dante had a header saved before the break as the match stayed 0-0 at half-time. Saint-Étienne still threatened after the restart, with Stassin hitting the post at 54 minutes, but Nice were the side that found the decisive stretch and then pulled away to make the scoreline look far more comfortable than the first hour suggested.
Claude Puel made four changes from the first leg at Geoffroy-Guichard, and two of them mattered immediately after the break when Bard and Cho were replaced by Diop and Boudache at half-time. Boudache’s goal helped finish the job alongside Wahi’s brace and Clauss’s strike, turning a contest that had carried danger early on into a clear verdict on the season. Nice will now go into 2026/27 in Ligue 1, while Saint-Étienne are left with the failure of a play-off they briefly threatened to control.
