In the 1995–1996 Champions League, Juventus beat defending champions Ajax to win the Big Ears Cup. In this year's Champions League top scorer list, Finn Litmanin won the Golden Boot with seven goals, and behind him were Raúl and Piero, both of whom later became symbols of their respective clubs, when they were in their early twenties. At the top 3 of the top scorers list, there is a familiar name for Dalian fans - Nicholas Weedek, and the former Dalian Shide foreign aid reached the peak of his career in this year.
In 1994, Nantes rose to prominence in Ligue 1 and won the 1994–1995 Ligue 1 title by 10 points ahead of Lyon, the seventh time in their history.
Nicholas was nantes' biggest contributor to the title, scoring 18 goals in 1994-1995, compared with Djokov in the previous season when he scored 20 goals in the golden boot. The frontcourt trident formed by Nicholas, Pedros and Loko was unique in Ligue 1, and the three of them were also known as the "Nantes Three Masters". The Nantes team also has Makelele and Karembu, the two future World Cup champions of France.
In this way, Nantes embarked on the 1995-1996 Champions League journey as Ligue 1 champions. At that time, only 16 teams participated in the Champions League, which was a veritable Champions League. Nantes are in the same group as Danish champion Aalborg, Greek champion Panathinaikos and Portugal champion Porto. In the group stage, Nantes doubled Aalborg with Nicolas' home and away goal, and it was with these two victories that Nantes won the qualification as the second in the group.
In the first round of the knockout round, Nantes' opponent was The first Moscow Sparta in Group B, and it should be known that in the group stage, the Russian champion won all 6 games and forced the Premier League champion Blackburn to qualify. In the first leg, Nantes scored with two-tier headers from Ndolam and Nicholas to beat Sparta Moscow 2-0 at home.
In the second leg away to Moscow, Sparta Moscow, who played at home, scored two goals in the first half to make the aggregate score 2-2. Nicholas stepped forward again in the crucial moment, scoring two goals in the second half, and these two goals also fully demonstrated his killer nature. In the end, the two teams shook hands 2-2, and Nantes defeated Sparta Moscow 4-2 on aggregate to advance to the Champions League semi-finals.
Nantes' opponent in the semi-finals was Juventus, who eliminated Real Madrid, and as the champion of the year, Juve did not take advantage of Nantes. In the first leg, Juve beat Nantes 2-0 at home thanks to goals from Vialli and Yugovic. However, in the away game, they lost 2-3 to Nantes in the gutter, and Juve struggled to advance to the final 4-3 on aggregate. In the end, he defeated Ajax in the final penalty shootout to win the championship.
Nicholas scored five goals in the Champions League this season and he is tied for 3rd in the Champions League top scorers list with Kluivert and Ravanelli. But what no one expected was that after this peak season, Nicholas's career took a sharp turn. In the summer of 1996, Nicolas was selected for the French national team's European Championship squad with his teammates Loko and Pedros, but during the training camp in England, Nicholas suffered a serious injury, after which he transferred to Espanyol, Paris Saint-Germain and Montpellier and failed to regain his previous form. It was not until 2002 that he came to the A-A arena and helped Dalian Shide win his 7th top league title with 10 goals.