Everything about RC Lens vs Paris Saint-Germain!

A little history...

Paris Saint-Germain vs Lens, the return of a great Ligue 1 classic. The two teams have already met 82 times in official matches and the Parisians have historically held the upper hand with 40 wins, 19 draws and 23 defeats.

Moreover, Les Rouge et Bleu are on a 12-match unbeaten run (8 wins and 4 draws) against Les Sang et Or, dating back to 5 November 2006 (3-1 victory at the Parc des Princes in the championship).

Paris Saint-Germain has not played in Lens for almost 10 years, and the Parisian victory on 26 September 2010 (2-0 for the club from the French capital). The Parisians' last defeat at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis dates back to 28 March 2004 (0-1 defeat) for a series of 6 matches without defeat (2 wins, 4 draws).

Attending a Paris Saint-Germain vs Lens match is often a guarantee of entertainment: with 253 goals scored in 82 matches, this fixture averages over three goals per game.

The top Parisian scorer against Lens is Mustapha Dahleb with 11 goals. He is ahead of François M'Pelé (8 goals), Dominique Rocheteau (7 goals) and Safet Susic (5 goals).

35 players have played for both teams: Alphonse Areola, Serge Aurier, Milan Bisevac, Jules Bocandé, François Brisson, Zoumana Camara, Clément Chantôme, Charles-Edouard Coridon, Eric Cubilier, Stéphane Dalmat, Frédéric Déhu, Jean Deloffre, Nicolas Douchez, Pierre-Alain Frau, Bernard Hereson, Bonaventure Kalou, Bernard Lama, Loïck Landre, Nicolas Laspalles, Ronan Le Crom, Jérôme Leroy, Danijel Ljuboja, Patrice Marquet, Jean-Eudes Maurice, François M’Pelé, William N’Jo-Lea, Pascal Nouma, Alex Nyarko, Stéphane Pédron, José Pierre-Fanfan, Thierry Rabat, Bruno Rodriguez, Daniel Xuereb, Christian Zajaczkowski, Bruno Zaremba. Gaétan Robail currently plays for Lens but never played a competitive first-team match for Paris Saint-Germain.

Les stakes

Paris Saint-Germain, French champions for the last three seasons, are back in Ligue 1 with the ambition of winning a tenth national title, equalling Saint-Etienne's national record.

The Parisians have won their opening match of the season since 2015-16 (Lille 1-0, Bastia 1-0, Amiens 2-0, Caen 3-0 and Nîmes 3-0). You have to go back to 6 August 2011, to find a Parisian loss in the opening match of the campaign, against Lorient at the Parc des Princes (0-1).

The keys to success

Despite numerous absentees in attack, Paris Saint-Germain will want to continue its incredible away run in the championship: Les Rouge et Bleu have scored at least one away goal in Ligue 1 since the 0-0 draw at Caen on 19 May 2018 in Ligue 1, a run of 32 consecutive matches, the best away run in the history of the championship level with Sedan between November 1957 and August 1959.

The Rouge et Bleu defence will want to match its attack: the Parisian club has not conceded a single goal in its opening Ligue 1 match since the draw at Reims (2-2) on 02/08/2014) for five consecutive clean-sheets.