2025, problematic year? At the Racing Club de Lens, we hope that the troubles at the start of the year are not just a foretaste of what awaits them during the second part of the season. After failing to sell two players – Neil El-Aynaoui to Monaco and Kevin Danso to AS Roma, for a total of 40 million euros – when everything seemed to be in place, before medical reasons compromised everything, after having seen its goalkeeper Brice Samba leave at Stade Rennais, it is in the direction of arrivals that the RCL was entitled to another unpleasant surprise.
Arriving in the North to pose for photographers, OM goalkeeper Pau Lopez finally saw his loan “cancelled” at the last moment because of Girona, the Spanish club where he had been loaned during the first part of the season . An unexpected decision which made the Blood and Gold leaders jump.
“While a total agreement had been found between the Racing Club de Lens, Olympique de Marseille (with which Lopez is under contract) and Pau Lopez, the arrival of the Spanish international is canceled, wrote the club of the basin mining in a press release. Girona FC informed Olympique de Marseille today of its firm desire to keep the player until January 29, an unacceptable condition for Racing, which thus renounces this signing. »
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Koffi should continue against Le Havre
The reason given by the Spanish club would be the impossibility of including another goalkeeper on the list of players able to play in the Champions League, according to a source close to Lens. The league stage of the European competition concludes on January 29. “The club will work to recruit another goalkeeper,” the same source told AFP.
Loaned by OM since last summer to Girona, where he only played one match during the first part of the season, Pau Lopez (30 years old) was to be loaned with an option to buy to Artois in order to replace former captain and French international Brice Samba (three caps), who signed for Rennes on Wednesday at midday. Will Still could then have lined up Pau Lopez on Sunday in Le Havre during the 17th day of Ligue 1.
If no other goalkeeper signs for Lens by then, it is Hervé Koffi, very good in the defeat against Toulouse (1-0) on Sunday at the Stade Bollaert, who should keep the artesian cages. This tile is not likely to reassure Lens supporters. The club suffers from persistent shortcomings in attack, and is experiencing a tormented start to the year with the defeat in Toulouse (1-0), the departure to everyone’s surprise of its captain Brice Samba and the expected departure of the starting defender Abdukodir Khusanov.
