Everyone's life is sometimes punctuated by unusual events. This is also the case for a football season, like that of LOSC, marked by the strength of a lucky bracelet. Narrative.
Fourth at the end of the 2023-2024 financial year, they still remember its tragic outcome during an evening with a changing ranking against Nice (2-2), the Mastiffs offered themselves, despite their misfortune, the right to still be able to dream of reaching the Champions League: the summit of European football.
Storm crossed
To reach the Grail, you still had to emerge victorious in the preliminary rounds of the competition, a real cut-throat for all French clubs worthy of the name. As proof, AS Monaco was the last team to have achieved this feat. It was in 2017. It could finally count on a successor with LOSC, which managed, not without difficulty, to cope with the first breathtaking confrontations with José Mourinho's Fenerbahçe SK then Slavia Prague. Alongside these shocks, points were accumulating in the championship. Conquerors, Bruno Genesio's men then stammered in their football. It all started in Prague where only the qualification was a reason for satisfaction as the result had been disastrous. Three consecutive defeats followed, including two scathing ones in Saint-Étienne (1-0) and Lisbon (2-0). Everything suddenly seemed darker. Fortunately it was only ephemeral.
The start began timidly during the spectacular reception of RC Strasbourg (3-3), then became historic with the fall of Real Madrid (1-0) on the lawn of the Decathlon Arena – Stade Pierre Mauroy. LOSC also claimed the scalp of Le Havre (0-3) then Toulouse FC (2-1) before snatching a draw from Monaco (0-0) during meetings with a generally narrow scenario (apart from a trip to Normandy ). It was finally in Madrid that everything changed despite repeated injuries.
A trip to Madrid
While an exploit had already been achieved, it was difficult to imagine that the Lille team would succeed in achieving the pass of two during their trip to the heart of the Spanish capital, especially since they had arrived with a reduced workforce and undermined by injury forfeits. However, everything was written before our eyes even before kick-off. Let yourself be carried away by this story.
On this sweet morning of October 23, 2024, it had already been a month since LOSC had last bowed, the French journalists had, while the press conferences had taken place the day before, plenty of time to take advantage of the places and to get lost in the maze of Madrid streets, all while buying the local press to recall memories of yesteryear – when we were still daily on a chair with a notebook and pen as kind companions of life – and its abstract notions. A good student, fortunately this was enough to decipher the local feathers: from the trap represented by the Mastiffs to a budding love for Alexsandro. Long live the Champions League.
These adventures began, acquaintances ended up crossing paths without having planned it at the most visited places in the capital, such as on the pavement of La Plaza de Mayor. It was then difficult to resist the desire to share the local taste pleasures and the scent of the dishes sold under the glass roof of the San Miguel Market: guaranteed flavors, tested and approved by a trio that had just been formed.
A lucky accessory
It was when we left that everything changed. At the bend of a pedestrian street, we were accosted by a Senegalese peddler. The latter mumbled a few words of the local dialect, all with an accent typical of the population struggling to handle one that is not their own: a French accent. What followed was an exchange far from being mercantile, but rather mixed with nostalgia, recounting the beauties abounding in the city of Dakar, capital of Senegal. It must be said that one of us had already ventured there for football reasons and that this had pushed us towards a discussion that was as fascinating as it was improbable. During our separations, probably our farewells, this beautiful meeting gave us a bracelet on which an elephant was represented, and still is: “This bracelet symbolizes strength,” he told us. He will give it to Lille who will not lose. Lille will win tonight, will always win,” he assured us, before leaving us.
Far from being superstitious, but amused by this speech, we obviously all arrived with this accessory around our wrist in the aisles of the Estadio Metropolitano. What followed was magical. Despite an experimental composition, with the surprise tenures of Mohamed Bayo, Matias Fernandez-Pardo and Ousmane Touré, Bruno Genesio's LOSC defeated Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid (1-3). The magic had worked and the elephant had narrowed the gap that could historically separate the Mastiffs from the Colchoneros.
A soon-to-be historic series
Since then, I assure you, one of the members of the trio, if not all three at the same time, systematically wears this bracelet with unsuspected powers. Result ? The LOSC is launched on a dynamic which could well prove historic. It's been 17 consecutive matches in all competitions that his men have not lost, despite having been forced to overcome challenges of all kinds: from the reception of Juventus to trips to Marseille, Lens or Rouen again.
This invincibility, if it lasts for a few more weeks, will then be a record (19 consecutive matches all inclusive of tax, to beat). However, the Mastiffs have nothing to fear, driven by the strength of an elephant. Did this survive the end of year celebrations? Response this Saturday at 7 p.m. during an opposition between LOSC (4th) and FC Nantes (14th), a duel played as part of the sixteenth day of Ligue 1.
