RC Lens Champions League defeat to Como, Digi Mart USA News (Bollaert Stadium, Lens, France): Finding words after a match like this is difficult. After RC Lens suffered a 9-1 defeat to Como in front of its own fans at Bollaert on Wednesday, November 4, the heaviest loss by a French club in Champions League history, midfielder Michaël Cuisance still answered three questions on Canal+, visibly moved.
“We have to pull ourselves together. We simply have to do better.
We were beaten. Sorry to all the fans.
We will get to work and work hard to get our heads above water. We never like to lose.
Today, this is not a defeat, it is a lesson,” said the 27-year-old midfielder. Looking ahead, he refused to dwell on self-criticism: “In life, I have known much worse.
There is only one path to take, and that is work.”
Lens conceded in the sixth minute and were never able to stop the flow of goals. “We had a game plan.
We did not respect it, and we were pierced,” said defender Ruben Aguilar, who scored Lens’s only goal. According to the French international, responsibility for the performance rests with the players alone: “It is not the coach, the president or the sporting director, but us players who must take responsibility, to right the ship by working three times harder.”
According to Stats Foot, RC Lens became the first club in the history of the top five European leagues to concede nine goals at home in European competition.
Despite two defeats in their first three Champions League matches, a loss this heavy was not expected on Wednesday night. Lens’s season has not started as brightly as last year’s, with coach Dino Toppmöller dismissed in September, but they sit a respectable ninth in Ligue 1.
Coach Yannick Cahuzac, speaking on Canal+, struggled to hide his cold anger: “What we said to each other will stay in the dressing room. The only feeling that prevails is humiliation.” He hopes his team will bounce back on Sunday at 8:45 p.m.
local time, when Lens face Olympique de Marseille at a Bollaert Stadium that has barely had time to recover from Wednesday’s trauma.
