Nice

Nice has drawn its sharpest lines along the coast. The match against Monaco carries the name Derby de la Côte d'Azur, and Marseille supplies the other fixture the city marks on the calendar, sometimes called Derby du Sud, sometimes Derby de la Méditerranée. Cannes, closer still, provides the smaller quarrel of the Alpes-Maritimes.

None of that rivalry existed when the organisation began, on 9 July 1904, as a general sports club, Gymnaste Club de Nice. Football arrived four years later as a separate section, and the club spent the next decade and a half changing shape: a return to its original name in 1910, a merger with Gallia Football Athlétic Club in 1919 that brought in the red and black, and in 1924 the settled name, Olympique Gymnaste Club de Nice. Professional status followed in 1932.

The club's peak sits in the 1950s, a run of four French championships across 1951, 1952, 1956 and 1959, built around a captain, Pancho Gonzales, and later carried in memory by Jean-Just Fontaine, who scored 44 goals for Nice before his move to Reims. The record for goals in the shirt belongs to Joaquín Valle, 211 in the league. Two of the club's three Coupe de France wins came from that same era, 1952 against Bordeaux and 1954 against Marseille; the third arrived decades later, in 1997, when Nice beat Guingamp on penalties after a 4-4 draw. A Challenge des Champions followed in 1970, a 2-0 win over Saint-Étienne. Later decades left their own mark through a goalkeeper, Dominique Baratelli, who became the face of the side through the 1970s.

Nice left Stade du Ray in 2013 for the Allianz Riviera, its home since. The ground holds 36,178.