The first Derby du Nord at a full Stade Bollaert in over a decade, the anticipation was palpable. Lens’ first season back in Ligue 1 was hugely impressive but they were still one-upped by title-winning rivals Lille, with the derbies their two worst performances of the season. Undefeated so far while Lille have struggled, Lens went into this match encouraged yet history ensured they couldn’t be confident.
Franck Haise made just one change to the team that beat Bordeaux last weekend, returning Cheick Doucouré to the midfield in place of Yannick Cahuzac, having served his suspension. They set up in their usual 3-4-1-2 formation.
Jocelyn Gourvennec made no changes from the side that could muster only a draw in the Champions League against Wolfsburg on Tuesday, sticking with Lille’s usual 4-4-2 shape.
From the off, Lens’ back three found it easy to play around Lille’s front two. They would pull Jonathan David and Burak Yimaz across to one side, then spread the ball out to the other, giving Jonathan Gradit or Facundo Medina the space to play out. Lens were frequently able to play around Lille’s strikers into midfield, forcing Xeka and Benjamin André into stepping up, creating space between the lines for the likes of Gaël Kakuta to pick up the ball. This allowed Lens to cut through Lille from back to front quickly.
Lille on the other hand found it difficult to play out from the back. Florian Sotoca and Arnaud Kalimuendo would pressure José Fonte and Sven Botman while Seko Fofana and Kakuta would get tight to André and Xeka. Jonathan Ikone and Angel Gomes would tuck inside, leaving four Lille players lining up against three Lens centre-backs, however, as Lille couldn’t pass the ball into midfield, they couldn’t get the ball into their attackers’ feet, so they had little to no influence.
Lille looked much more threatening when they were more direct. They would frequently send the ball long for a striker to run the channels, but Lens’ centre-backs could sweep up the ball pretty comfortably.
It was instead when they passed the ball wide early in the build-up that they looked good. Lens’ set-up blocked off passes through the centre, but, while Kalimuendo and Sotoca tried to block off the passes from the centre-backs to the full-backs, Reinildo Mandava and Mehmet Zeki Celik were mostly left free. Once the ball went wide to the full-back, Lens’ wing-backs would step up to close them down, and so Lille could send a pass down the line to where their forwards were four-versus-four against the remaining Lens defenders.
The match was nearly abandoned at half-time thanks to crowd trouble. Enraged by a tifo, Lille fans began ripping up seats and throwing them over the fence onto Lens supporters in the Tribune Trannin, occupied largely by families. Lens ultras from the Marek then staged a pitch invasion to confront the Lille fans, requiring the intervention of police. After a delay of fifteen minutes, the second half went ahead, but with a line of CRS – essentially riot police – along the touchline in front of the Marek and Trannin stands.
In the second half, Lille’s attacking flipped: they were often poor when trying to exploit Lens’ wing-backs, releasing the ball too slowly to catch them out, however they were able to play out into midfield with greater ease. In the first half, André had often dropped back to help the centre-backs play out to little effect, but now both he and Xeca would do it, making it harder for Kakuta and Fofana to follow them without the midfield being pulled apart, and Ikone and Gomes made themselves available for shorter passes. To deal with this, Lens instead used a more zonal approach, forming their usual 5-2-3 shape with Kakuta up in line with the strikers.
Lens continued to have the better of the game though and were managing to press long into the second half, perhaps aided by the extended half-time break.
They took the lead with seventeen minutes to go. Medina passed into Doucouré in midfield and David and Yilmaz did nothing as he turned and strode forward, then slid a pass straight through the centre to Kakuta. The Lens youth product’s touch took him towards the left, drawing Celik towards him, opening up space for Przemyslaw Frankowski on the overlap. Kakuta slid a pass into him that Fonte read well but Frankowski won the tackle for the loose ball, taking him into the box to finish past Ivo Grbic on his stronger right foot.
Lille pushed forward in search of an equaliser, mainly looking to flood the box for crosses, but this only opened them up. Lens appeared to double their lead on the counter only for it to be ruled out for offside and Clauss nearly added a second running in behind onto a pass from Doucouré.
To protect their lead, Haise made a late double substitution, bringing on Deiver Machado and Cahuzac for Clauss and Kakuta, switching to a 5-4-1 formation and Frankowski from left to right, with Sotoca tracking back tirelessly in front of him.
When the final whistle blew, Lens could celebrate their first derby victory in fifteen years. It was greatly deserved by the players, who worked incredibly hard, continuing to press deep into injury time.
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