Soaking up the raucous Stade Bollaert-Delelis atmosphere, Lens started with fire in their hearts against the team they aim to dethrone, and Przemysław Frankowski chose the perfect occasion to convert his first goal of the Ligue 1 season, capitalising after Gianluigi Donnarumma got an unconvincing hand to Massadio Haïdara’s volley. But champions PSG showed exactly why they are chasing the outright record of 11 French titles a mere three minutes later, as Hugo Ekitike met Nordi Mukiele’s pullback ahead of Brice Samba and finished to equalise.
Despite the absence of Neymar and Lionel Messi from PSG’s ranks, overall intensity remained high as the teams went toe-to-toe, and Kylian Mbappé’s strike almost slipped through Samba’s fingers before Ekitike’s follow-up hit the side netting. Alexis Claude-Maurice then wasted a golden opportunity to reinstate Lens’ lead, but Loïs Openda soon succeeded where his teammate failed. The Belgian emerged heroically from the shadows of seven consecutive games without a start for club and country, sprinting through and skipping inside Marquinhos, before coolly slipping his shot through Donnarumma’s clutches.
The goal came at a vital time for Lens in terms of the HT team talk, but there was one amongst them who still had a lot to prove. Not to be denied his own contribution to a potentially historic night, Claude-Maurice emerged strongly from the dressing room and made no mistake when the hosts’ high press presented him with an opportunity just three minutes after the restart. Without hesitation, he confidently slotted his shot into the corner of PSG’s net to seemingly seal the points before the champions could give themselves any hope.
Even though Christophe Galtier’s side pushed the hosts back, they were met with plenty of resistance and Achraf Hakimi resorted to hitting speculative efforts from outside the box as desperation seeped in. And when PSG eventually looked like breaking through Lens’ tiring defences with a quarter-hour left, Samba made a sensational save to keep out Pablo Sarabia’s header.
There were even chances for Lens to truly humiliate PSG, with Marquinhos halting Seko Fofana late on, and the Parisians laboured to a maiden defeat in their 24th competitive match of an exhausting season. On tonight’s evidence, ‘champions’ is a tag PSG will certainly need to earn this time around, with Lens having now won all nine of their home fixtures this term, while in turn closing their gap behind the league leaders to just four points.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Kevin Danso (RC Lens)