the tasty exchange between Nicollin and Delort, two years after the attacker’s eventful departure
While their collaboration in Montpellier ended badly a little over two years ago, Laurent Nicollin and Andy Delort met again this Tuesday on the show Rothen s’igne on RMC. The opportunity for the two men to definitively bury the hatchet… and engage in a rather friendly exchange.
The story didn’t end very well. After three great seasons in the Montpellier jersey, Andy Delort decides to leave the Hérault club in the summer of 2021 to join OGC Nice. “The story ends in a bit of a mess,” lamented Laurent Nicollin, president of the MHSC, at the time. “When you have a fiancée who doesn’t want to sleep with you anymore, you’re not going to tie her up at home. She leaves and you find someone else. People are disappointed, me first and foremost. We’re not going to to elaborate. That’s just the way.”
A little over two years later, time has taken its toll. And the bitterness of Laurent Nicollin has disappeared. “We have seen each other since, there is no problem,” confided the Montpellier leader in the show Rothen s’enflamme this Tuesday on RMC. “Life is like that. Everyone makes choices. I think he regrets it a little even if he won’t admit it. It’s true that since he left, he stayed there for several years, everything is fine,” Nicollin continued with a laugh, a reference to the recent upheavals in the career ofAndy Delortpassed through Nice, Nantes and Umm Salal (Qatar) in the space of two seasons.
“Contacts” existed for a return “at the start of the season”
Present in the show as a consultant, the Algerian international striker (32 years old, 15 caps) for his part took responsibility for his choices, recalling in passing that it was Marseille which initially had his favors. “It was OM that tickled me, it had to be done with Marseille. Laurent Nicollin knew that I had a weakness for Marseille. It didn’t happen because they didn’t sell a player and then I was left for Nice. We agreed for Marseille and then it was my choice. After all the great seasons we had with Montpellier, the goals scored and what we had created, I I couldn’t see having an average season and I felt that it was going to be complicated. Sportingly it was my choice, I also played in Europe with Nice.”
“It’s over, now, you don’t have to be stupid. We had three very good years, he’s someone I appreciated,” continued Nicollin, in a nice exchange with his former striker. “I was disappointed but that’s how it is, that’s life. Seeing him again in Montpellier? We had contact before the start of the season. He asked me if it was possible, I said that I thought it wasn’t the right time. It’s like with a woman who cheats on you, you don’t take her back afterwards.”
“We spent three extraordinary seasons, where Laurent created a team of warriors that resembles Montpellier,” concluded Delort. “I hope he will quickly find a group like that.” The hatchet is definitely buried.
