There are nights when the better side wins, and there are nights when one man drags a lesser one to the brink before the better side wins anyway. Lens's National Cup final was both.

Nice lifted the Season 3 FRA Cup with a single 71st-minute strike from Sofiane Diop, a 1-0 win earned on Lens's own ground in front of 36,569 — and a scoreline that flattered the hosts only because their goalkeeper refused to be beaten until he had to be.

The shape of it

Lens had the ball — 52% of it — but Nice had the menace. Iyke's side worked eight shots on target to Lens's four, and from the opening minute, when Gaëtan Laborde teed up Evann Guessand to force Brice Samba into the first of seven saves, the danger flowed almost entirely one way.

Samba was the wall. He turned Diop away at 19 minutes and again at 23, then beat out Antoine Mendy on the stroke of half-time. The home side's best moments came through Przemysław Frankowski, whose five key passes were the closest thing they had to a creative pulse, but the finishing never matched the build-up: front men Florian Sotoca and Rémy Labeau-Lascary both limped out of the night with a 4 rating apiece. At the other end Marcin Bułka was comparatively idle — four saves, the pick of them a double stop on Sotoca either side of the break — behind a back line marshalled superbly by the near-flawless Dante Costa Santos, rated 9.

The hour that turned it

Iyke did not wait for extra time to gamble. On 60 minutes he made a triple change in one go — Jérémie Boga, Moïse Lumpungu and Mohamed Mohamed Ahmed all on — and flipped Nice into a counter-attacking shape. Eleven minutes later it paid. Diop, twice denied by Samba in the first half and wide with another effort early in the second, finally found the corner with his fourth attempt of the night, an open-play finish the Lens keeper could not keep out.

It was the playmaker's evening from first whistle to last: man of the match, a perfect 10 rating, the goal, four shots and even two key tackles for good measure. Across the technical area, the contrast was stark. Lens's bench went untouched — not a single substitution all night — and the eleven who started were left to watch Nice's fresh legs decide a cup final.

What Lens will rue

This was a wasted home advantage. The final was staged at Lens's own 41,000-seat ground, the hosts came in 11th in FRA Division 1 on a flat run of four draws and two defeats, and yet they reached a showpiece carrying 59.2m SVC in prize money. On paper they are the richer club — 191.2m SVC in the bank to Nice's 145.6m — but the squad ratings told the truer story, Nice's average of 80 sitting six points clear of Lens's 74.

Once Diop struck, Nice shut the door, switching to a defensive block on 75 minutes. The cruel twist for Lens was that it left Samba making the night's last meaningful saves at the wrong end, denying Boga and Mohamed Ahmed as the visitors broke. Ruben Aguilar's 85th-minute effort flew wide; the equaliser never looked like arriving.

For Nice, the cup caps a season that promised more. They sat top of Ligue 1 before fading to third behind champions Paris, and a closing league run of five wins in six carried them into this final in form. Iyke gets the silverware his side's spring deserved.

Lens head into the summer with the harder questions — beaten at home in their biggest game of the year, and with a managerial transition already on the table after a campaign of mid-table drift. Their seven-save goalkeeper, at least, walked off with his head high. On a night when almost nothing else went right for the hosts, Brice Samba's was the noblest losing effort on the pitch — undone, in the end, by the one shot he could not reach.