FINAL: RC Lens 1, Como 9
Como beat RC Lens 9-1 at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis on Wednesday night, November 4, scoring nine goals in a Champions League match as an away side for the first time since 1971 and equalling the competition’s biggest winning margin. Tasos Douvikas scored a hat-trick, Nico Paz ran the game, and 18-year-old Matteo Papaccioli scored the ninth on his debut. The full story of the night itself is in iimiTV’s breaking report on Como scoring nine in the historic Lens rout.
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Thursday brought the layer Wednesday night could not contain: the records that only settled once the statisticians finished counting, an apology tour in Lens, and a question about Cesc Fabregas that has nothing to do with one match. The beIN SPORTS highlights carry all nine goals:
Como 9-1 Lens Records That Settled Overnight
The deepest new numbers come from Opta Analyst’s full breakdown of the match, published on Thursday. Como had 11 different players score or assist in the game, a new Champions League record that overtakes the 10 Benfica recorded against Maccabi Haifa in November 2022, and all nine goals were assisted, the most assists by one team in a Champions League game, beating the eight Bayern Munich managed against Barcelona in August 2020. The nine goals came from 18 shots and 4.18 expected goals.
The debut-season totals are just as stark. Opta records Como’s 19 goals in their first four major European matches as the joint-most by any club, matching Queens Park Rangers in 1976, and five clear of the previous Champions League mark for a club’s first four games, the 14 Juventus scored in 1995-96. Como have scored with 35 percent of their shots in the competition this season, and Douvikas, who UEFA named Player of the Match in its official Matchday 4 round-up, leads the league phase scoring chart with six goals from nine shots. Paz has the most goal involvements in the competition, three goals and five assists. UEFA’s own Champions League account put the margin in its historical frame on the night: “Lens 1-9 Como (2026), Real Madrid 8-0 Malmo (2015), Liverpool 8-0 Besiktas (2007). Como making history.”
Lens Call It Humiliation And A Lesson
There was no dressing the result up on the home side. Lens head coach Yannick Cahuzac told UEFA.com, in comments carried in full by SoccerNews on Thursday: “It’s a heavy scoreline; we were completely dominated. We’ve got to have a long, hard look at ourselves and attempt to regain some pride against Marseille on Sunday.” He added: “I can’t offer you an in-depth analysis of what went wrong. We’re hurting, but I’m going to concentrate on my players and how we can pick them up from this.” In separate post-match comments reported in France, Cahuzac used one word for the feeling: humiliation.
The players who scored and conceded said the same thing in their own words. Ruben Aguilar, whose volley was Lens’s only goal, said the squad would go home with a feeling of shame, that they had been walked over, and that all of the players were shocked, as Get French Football News reported on Thursday. Midfielder Michael Cuisance, speaking to Canal+ with red eyes, went further: “I’m speechless. The team needs to pull itself together, we need to do better. We’re in the Champions League, we have to honour this European Cup, and today we weren’t up to the task, we weren’t good enough. We’re sorry for the fans.” He called the night “not a defeat, it’s a lesson,” and said the only way out was learning, hard work, and everyone questioning themselves. Lens, third from bottom of the league phase with three points, now host Marseille at the same stadium on Sunday.
The Fabregas Future Question Arrives Early
By Thursday morning the Como conversation had moved past the scoreline to the man who built the team. On TNT Sports, former Premier League goalkeeper Asmir Begovic asked the question plainly: “How are they keeping hold of Cesc Fabregas?” Begovic praised how completely the players buy into the manager’s ideas and noted the value building in young players such as Paz, before adding that Fabregas is “the main one.” Julien Laurens told TNT Sports: “He is the key here. He really has been outstanding, for his first job, bringing them up from the second division into the first division and then qualifying for Europe. At some point, he will go to a bigger club, probably in England.” Fara Williams credited the time Como have given him: time lets a coach put a philosophy across, and the movement, direct running and collective defending are the evidence.
Thursday’s reporting also revived the unusual arrangement behind him. SPORTbible reported on Thursday morning that Fabregas, under contract until June 2028 and a shareholder in the club since 2022, has a special understanding with Como: president Mirwan Suwarso said in an October appearance that Fabregas does not need a clause to leave, and that if he called asking to pursue a new opportunity, the club would let him go without compensation. None of that means a move is close. Fabregas’s own Thursday message was the same one he gave on Wednesday night: recover the injured players, especially in attack, and prepare for Sunday. “There is a long way to go,” he said of a league phase that still ends with Paris Saint-Germain at home and Barcelona away in January.
What The Morning After Means Next
Sunday is why nobody at Como can live in Wednesday. SempreInter’s Thursday preview frames the Serie A meeting at San Siro as second against fourth: Inter on 25 points, Como on 23, with a Como win moving them above Inter before the international break. Inter will still be without captain Lautaro Martinez, out since mid-October with a left thigh flexor problem, as Fanpage.it reported and SempreInter carried. Como arrive with seven wins from ten league games and six straight wins in all competitions, but also with the same injury list that made Wednesday’s scoreline more remarkable: Moise Kean, Trevoh Chalobah, Assane Diao, Jesus Rodriguez and Jayden Addai were all missing in Lens.
That is the honest shape of the morning after a 9-1. The records are settled and they are historic: the biggest away win the Champions League has seen, a debut campaign level with a 50-year-old QPR mark, and the competition’s top scorer in a Como shirt. The reaction is settled too: contrition in Lens, and in the wider game, a new and louder conversation about how long Como keep the coach who made it happen. What is not settled is whether a young, short-handed side can do anything like it at San Siro on Sunday, and then against AEK Athens, Real Betis, Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona. Fabregas asked the whole city of Como to enjoy the moment and start work the next day. Thursday showed both halves of that instruction happening at once.
