RC Lens Stuns Slavia Prague with Late Comeback in Champions League

RC Lens turned what looked like a nightmare into a night they will talk about for years, ripping up the script with a staggering late comeback to beat Slavia Prague 3-2 on their UEFA Champions League return.

With the clock ticking into the 89th minute at the Fortuna Arena, Dino Toppmöller’s side were staring at a damaging defeat. They were a goal down, 2-1 behind, even though Slavia had been reduced to ten men after Konecny’s red card. Sturm had just struck his second of the evening, and Lens were drifting towards a result that would have haunted them.

Then the game flipped on its head.

Thauvin and a teenager change everything

The pressure finally told in stoppage time. In the 91st minute, Florian Thauvin – not exactly renowned for his aerial prowess – rose to meet a superb cross from 16-year-old Mezian Mesloub and steered in the equaliser. A veteran forward on the end of a delivery from a teenager barely old enough to drive: the symbolism was as striking as the goal itself.

Thauvin could laugh about it afterwards on Canal+, fully aware of the novelty of scoring with his head. But in the moment, it was pure defiance. Lens refused to accept the script.

The stadium had barely caught its breath when the decisive blow landed. Two minutes after the leveller, Ruben Aguilar stepped up with a brilliant winner, completing a turnaround that felt almost impossible when the fourth official’s board first went up. From 2-1 down in the 89th minute to 3-2 up in stoppage time, Lens had ripped victory from the jaws of humiliation.

It was more than just three points. It was history. The result delivered Lens’s first away win in the Champions League since 1998, ending a 26-year wait on the grandest stage.

“We fought like lions”

Thauvin’s reaction captured the mood inside a dressing room that has taken its share of punches in recent weeks. The French forward framed his goal not as a technical feat, but as a reflection of mentality, of a team willing to throw everything at the final minutes and live with the consequences.

He pointed straight to the character that dragged Lens off the canvas. The squad, he stressed, had been going through a difficult spell domestically, and this kind of escape – backs to the wall, belief hanging by a thread – can harden a season’s identity. Nights like this either break you or bind you. Lens chose the latter.

Toppmöller’s bench played its part. The second-half substitutes changed the temperature of the game, with Abdallah Sima finding the net and Mesloub stepping on to the European stage with the composure of a veteran. Their impact underlined the depth and competitive edge the coach has been searching for.

Thauvin highlighted that response as proof of the group’s mental strength, insisting that fighting “like lions” and refusing to let go of the contest would serve as a turning point. In Prague, Lens didn’t just survive adversity; they embraced it and turned it into fuel.

From Prague to Ligue 1

This was more than a wild European night. For a team struggling for rhythm at home, the manner of the win could reset the mood around the club. A chaotic, emotional, last-gasp victory can do what a routine 2-0 rarely manages: restore conviction.

Lens now carry that surge of belief back into domestic duty. They return to Ligue 1 on Sunday to face Le Mans FC, armed with fresh evidence that this squad can dig itself out of trouble when the situation looks bleakest.

If they can bottle the relentlessness they showed in Prague and pour it into their league campaign, this frantic evening in the Czech capital may come to be seen not as an anomaly, but as the moment their season truly caught fire.