RC Lens v Sporting CP

 

RC Lens v Sporting CP
October 13th, 2026
Stade Bollaert-Delelis
Champions League Matchday 2

The Warm up

From 2012/13 onwards PSG have dominated the top flight of French football. So much so that they’ve never finished out of the top two places and only twice have they failed to be crowned champions; 2020/21 won by Lille and in 2016/17 won by AS Monaco. So last season when Lens topped Ligue 1 for 9 matchdays that age old question reared it's ugly head - they couldn't could they? No, of course they couldn't. Yet they did finish runners up which guaranteed their place in this season's Champions League. PSG rallied from their defeat in Lisboa to win back to back Champions Leagues and added another Ligue 1 title just for good measure. 

Lens won their one and only Ligue 1 title in 1997/98. The iPhone was still a decade away from being launched and apple's were still something you ate for a snack or put in pies. Football clubs weren't owned by petro chemical states and the Spice Girls were en route for world domination. They were different times indeed. If you wanted to express your annoyance at your teams performances you phoned into the local radio show, wrote a letter to the Editor of the paper or had to make do with moaning to your friends. No one knew what you had for breakfast, lunch or dinner, neither would they ever look at a photo of it and the internet still needed a modem and a phone line for access. 

Racing Club de Lens to give them their full name, more commonly known simply as RCL, were founded 120 years ago. Their nickname is Les Sang et Or (The Blood and Gold) based on their traditional team colours. Home is the Stade Bollaert-Delelis which was opened in the June of 1933 and boasts a capacity of 38,223.

Lens have never been associated with being one of France’s largest footballing clubs but don't confuse their runners up story from last season as being a tale of a small team overcoming massive odds with an unsuccessful title bid. They're owned by Joseph Oughourlian who has an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion. The collapse of the previous French TV rights deal when all Ligue 1 clubs were told to put €0 in their column for TV revenue may well have benefitted Lens with a billionaire owner but that's a hypothesis that may just as easily be shut down so don't quote me on that. 

Oughourlian made his bid for Lens in May of 2016 against 2 further rival bids and his was given preferred status. At the time the clubs finances were described as delicate. Seems a very polite way of saying they were in dire need of financial investment and rescue but there we go, each to their own. Two months later Atlético de Madrid took a 34.6% stake in the club. By December of 2017 Oughourlian had become the sole shareholder when he bought out the minority stake held by the La Liga side. 

In May of 2014 two years prior to his takeover Lens had sealed promotion back to Ligue 1. However French authorities, who really don't dick about when it comes to club finances, blocked the promotion owing to irregularities in their proposed budget. A €10m payment due from shareholder Hafiz Mammadov was missing. They appealed and won but on January 29th, 2015 it was announced they'd be relegated irrespective of where they finished.

Oughourlian’s purchase funded a promotion bid in 2016/17 which almost worked but they failed to secure a return to the top flight missing out on the very last day of the season. If expectations were raised for the next campaign then they were soon brought back down to earth with a bump as they began with the worst start in their clubs history which resulted in seven straight league defeats. They did recover sufficiently to avoid relegation. 

The following season they finished fifth but lost in the play offs to Dijon, a side who I believe on their day are described as being proper mustard. I'm here all week, tip your waitress. Finally on April 20th, 2020 RCL of all things had COVID to be thankful for when French authorities abandoned the remainder of their league calendar and sat in second place they were promoted. 

Just five years after losing all seven of their opening league games in Ligue 2, they went on to win all ten of their opening games in Ligue 1, quite the turnaround. Eventually they'd finish runners up to PSG by a single point. This brought about a European Cup / Champions League place for only the third time in their history; 1998/99 following their only league win as we'd previously mentioned and 2002/03. 

A disappointing couple of seasons followed which resulted in them hiring Pierre Sage. He'd been without work for four months having been dismissed by Lyon. On June 2nd, 2025 he was announced on a three year deal. He led them to the Coupe de France final beating Nice 3-1 which was the first time in their history they'd won the French equivalent of the Taça de Portugal. This would mean they'd play in the French Supertaça against Ligue 1 winners PSG. However they wouldn't be led by Pierre Sage who had left for Premier League side Crystal Palace in June of this year. His replacement is the German coach Dino Toppmöller who signed on a 2 year deal. Even without Sage they took the lead on 31’ through Florian Thauvin. Kylian Antonio saw red 7 minutes before half time. Despite being a man down against the reigning French and European champions they held on steadfast to their slender lead and were ultimately helped over the line when ironically it was one of our own former players who got sent off five minutes from time to make it a 10 v 10. That of course being the Portuguese youngster Nuno Mendes. 

Oughourlian also has a shareholding in Italian side Calcio Padua and Millonarios in Colombia. 

They were definitely a good bet in the league last season for a 1 or 2 (home or away win) drawing the fewest games of any side - 4. Won 22, lost 8, GF 66, GA 35. That bet a 100% banker at home. Played 17, won 14, drawn 3, lost 0. GF 35 GA 13. On the road they won 8, 4 draws and 5 defeats. GF 31 GA 22. Of their 66 goals scored 48 were from open play, 13 set pieces, 4 penalties and 1 own goal. Their xG slightly higher at 67.7. Top scorers Odsonne Édouard and Wesley Saïd with 12 apiece and only 1 goal behind Florian Thauvin with 11. The remainder shared between 14 players. Second highest average goals scored per game, second for fewest average goals conceded, second highest xG. They averaged 5.6 shots on target per game and like the lions missed the most big chances with 88 in total, 10 more than PSG. Twelve clean sheets in total. 

Summer transfer window 

Incoming 

Franjo Ivanovic - Benfica (Loan)
Yacine Titraoui - Sporting Charleroi £6.9m
Maik Nawrocki - Celtic £2.2m
Michal Skóras - Gent £5.2m
Thorgan Hazard - Free Agent 
Michaël Cuisance - Hertha BSC £3m
Saud Abdulhamid - AS Roma £3m

Outgoing 

Gabin Capuano - Quevilly (Loan)
Mamadou Sangaré - Brentford £41m
Hervé Koffi - Union St-Gilloise (Loan)
Erawan Garnier - SC Bastia £86,000
Rémy Lascary - Auxerre (Loan)
Malang Sarr - Neon SC (Free)
Jeremy Agbonifo - Jagiellonia Bialystok (Loan)
Wesley Saïd to Al-Shamal (Free)
Mattia Foftin - Palermo (Loan)
Goduine Koyalipou - Kortjik (Loan)
Allan Saint-Maximin - Charlotte FC (Free)
Angelo Fulgini - Al Khaleej (Free)
Fodé Sylla - Sion £860,000
Anthony Bermont - Angers (Loan)
Kembo Diliwidi - FCB Dender EH £172,000
Facundo Medina - Marseille £15m
Yannick Pandor - Amiens £258,000
Adrien Thomasson - Rennes (Free)
Anass Zaroury - Panathinaikos (Free)

Their biggest loss will be the incredibly highly rated Sangaré who by all accounts bossed the Brentford midfield in their opening 3-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur. Losing Saïd and his 11 goals won't help their cause either and neither will the loss of Medina to fellow Ligue 1 side Marseille.

Sporting will of course be hoping to build on their decent recent record against French clubs which has seen them best PSG, Marseille and Lille in the Champions League and the 7-0 pre-season thumping of RC Strasbourg. They'll earmark this as one of their more winnable games of the 8 but then again so will Lens. 

If RCL are reeling from the loss of their mister and some of their best players then they've disguised it well in their opening fixtures. Not content with beating PSG to lift the Supertaça in the curtain raiser, they put five goals past Auxerre at home on Matchday 1 for a winning start to their new league campaign. A lively encounter saw 7 goals, 3 penalties and a red card. Thauvin opened the scoring on 11 minutes from the penalty spot. Christ Makosso saw a straight red on 34 minutes for Auxerre. That might also have been what the Auxerre mister said aloud when he was sent off. Give it a moment... Benfica loanee Ivanovic made it 2-0 on 48’ and fellow new signing Abdulhamid made it 3-0 on 53’. Namaso pulled one back from the penalty spot on the hour. Gabiou made it 4-1 five minutes later and Sy made it 4-2 just 3 minutes after that. Five goals shared in the space of just 20 second half minutes. Thauvin converted a second penalty 3 minutes from time. xG 4.41 to 1.84. Lens with 9 attempts from 12 on target which feels incredibly impressive and yet their xG is inflated by the two penalties but nonetheless an xG of 4.41 against 12 total attempts is highly impressive. PSG are yet to win either of their opening league games and needed two goals in additional time to draw 2-2 away from home on the same night Sporting were putting 4 past Rio Ave away.

Can Lens challenge again domestically? Time will tell. The question will be how big of a distraction will the Champions League be? Sporting can testify that for a smaller club trying to compete on more than one front, the further you go in Europe, the harder it becomes to maintain your efforts in the league. Titles are won and lost on the finest of margins. 

In the markets 

RC Lens TBC
Draw TBC 
Sporting CP TBC