Lens Fire Cahuzac After Nine Games and a 9-1, and Need a Third Coach Before December

Last season, Lens were French Cup winners and Ligue 1 runners-up behind Paris Saint-Germain. On Tuesday they fired their second coach of the season before the middle of November. Yannick Cahuzac lasted nine games, three wins and six losses, and the last week of his short spell included a 9-1 home defeat to Como that equaled the biggest margin of victory in modern Champions League history.

AFP confirmed the decision through a source close to the club after L'Equipe first reported it. Cahuzac, a 41-year-old former Lens captain, had been promoted from assistant on September 15 to replace Dino Toppmöller, who left after just four Ligue 1 matchdays and became the league's first coaching casualty of the season, according to franceinfo.

The promotion was already controversial. The Guardian noted that Cahuzac is a friend of sporting director Jean-Louis Leca, which led to accusations of cronyism when he got the job. His results did not help him answer them: Lens are 11th in Ligue 1 and, per franceinfo, have lost four of their last five games in all competitions.

The sequence was brutal. Lens lost the northern derby to Lille 1-0, then hosted Como last Wednesday and conceded nine. Four days later Marseille won 2-1 at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis, and the board acted.

The Como game was not just a bad night. Opta's numbers show how embarassing it was for the French side: all nine Como goals were assisted, a Champions League record, and it was the biggest away win in the competition's history. No French team had ever lost a major European home match by more than five goals before. Tasos Douvikas scored three times for Cesc Fàbregas' side.

Cahuzac did not hide from it. "We feel like we're in a bad way. We feel that Wednesday's result has left its mark," he said after the Marseille defeat, according to AFP. "We've managed to pick ourselves up. But we've got quite a few gaps in the team, and we feel we've lost our confidence."

Club president Joseph Oughourlian was even more direct. "In front of our fans, here at Bollaert, this is unacceptable," he said, and he also had the words "never again" painted on the dressing room walls.

The European picture is the most worrying part. Lens have played three Champions League games and lost all three, against Sporting, Club Brugge and Como. That leaves the next coach with very little margin in the league phase.

Who that coach will be is still open. French outlet Onze Mondial reported that Pierre Sage is among the names being considered: Sage is the coach who won the French Cup with Lens last season and now manages Crystal Palace. Nothing has been confirmed, and Sage is still in charge at Palace, where his own position has been questioned.

For Lens, the international break is the only good news this week. It gives the board time to pick a third coach of 2026-27 before Ligue 1 returns, and whoever arrives inherits a squad that finished second last season but now has to rebuild its confidence from a 9-1 that will follow it for a long time.