Football purists left Geoffroy-Guichard unsatisfied on Tuesday night. The 0-0 stalemate between Saint-Étienne and Nice in the Ligue 1/Ligue 2 promotion playoff first leg delivered the most barren 90 minutes in France’s top two flights—plus play-offs—since the 2022-23 season.
The teams managed a combined 0.41 xG (0.11 for the hosts, 0.30 for the visitors), a figure Opta records confirm as the lowest in any completed match across Ligue 1, Ligue 2 or the promotion playoffs over the past four seasons. Worse still, neither side registered a single shot on target throughout the entire evening.
Only two other fixtures in the current campaign came close to such meagre attacking returns: Grenoble-Bastia (0.55 xG, 0-0 on 26 September) and Toulouse-Strasbourg (0.56 xG, 1-0 on 6 December). Earlier this season, Metz-Brest (0-1 on 12 December 2023) managed a slightly higher 0.54 xG, yet still fell short of the current benchmark.
Saint-Étienne’s attacking woes were particularly stark. The club failed to attempt a single shot on target inside the opposition box—a feat matched only twice in the past two decades. The last occasions came in April 2017 at home to Paris Saint-Germain (0-5) and in December 2024 against Marseille (0-2), both ending in defeats.
Yet the flip side of such offensive droughts is often defensive solidity. The club’s tally of 15 clean sheets this term places them second only to Paris Saint-Germain’s 18, combining both Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 sides.