FINAL: RC Lens 1, Como 9
Como beat RC Lens 9-1 in the UEFA Champions League league phase at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis in France on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. The Como 9-1 Champions League win made the Italian debutants just the second team ever to score nine goals in a match in the competition.
Three Goals Before Half-Time In Lens
Como arrived in northern France still looking for their first ever Champions League away win, having beaten RB Leipzig and Manchester United 4-1 at home and lost 3-2 at Feyenoord in their only previous road game. They were also short-handed, with Moise Kean, Trevoh Chalobah, Assane Diao, Jesus Rodriguez and Jayden Addai all missing, but they had won five straight matches in all competitions and played like a side in form from the first minutes.
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Anastasios Douvikas opened the scoring inside seven minutes. A corner was taken short, Luis Milla crossed, Maxi Perrone knocked the ball down and the Greek striker prodded it in from close range at full stretch, scoring for the fourth straight Champions League appearance. Lens had a penalty appeal turned away and then saw a spot kick initially awarded against Como overturned by VAR, when replays showed the ball had struck Maxence Caqueret on the chest rather than his arm. Como made the reprieve count on 32 minutes with a team move that started from goalkeeper Jean Butez and swept the length of the pitch: Nico Paz floated a ball to the far post, Alex Valle volleyed it back across goal and Douvikas tapped in his second.
Paz added the third himself five minutes before half-time, firing a fierce left-foot strike into the roof of the net from a tight angle after a Douvikas assist. The Argentine then held up a shirt in honour of Jesus de Miguel, who died this week following an on-field accident, a quiet moment inside a loud first half that ended with the visitors 3-0 up.
Six More Goals After The Break
Any thought of a slower second half lasted less than a minute. Lucas Da Cunha played a give and go with Paz down the right and bent a left-foot finish into the far bottom corner for 4-0. Marc-Oliver Kempf headed in a Milla cross for the fifth on 53 minutes, and four minutes later Douvikas completed his hat-trick, running onto a Paz pass from midfield, drawing out goalkeeper Robin Risser and sweeping the ball home for 6-0.
The scoring still was not finished. Substitute Mattia Liberali drove down the right and finished at the near post for 7-0 on 62 minutes. Lens finally answered three minutes later, Ruben Aguilar left relatively unmarked on a corner to volley into the far bottom corner, but Martin Baturina restored the seven-goal margin on 69 minutes with a solo run through the defence and a one-on-one finish. In stoppage time, 18-year-old Matteo Papaccioli sprung the offside trap on a Liberali assist and scored the ninth on his debut, the goal confirmed by a VAR check after the flag had briefly delayed his celebration. He ran straight to head coach Cesc Fabregas on the touchline.
A Como 9-1 Champions League Night For The Record Books
The records attached to this result explain why it leads the night. According to Opta, Como became just the second team to score nine goals in a single UEFA Champions League match, after Bayern Munich beat Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in September 2024. Because Como did it away from home, they also became the first team to score nine in an away match in the European Cup or Champions League since Feyenoord won 9-0 at Olympiakos in September 1971, a gap of 55 years. The eight-goal margin equals the biggest in the modern Champions League, matching Liverpool’s 8-0 win over Besiktas in 2007 and Real Madrid’s 8-0 win over Malmo in 2015.
The Italian marks are just as stark. No Italian team had ever scored even seven away goals in the Champions League or the old European Cup before Como scored nine in Lens, and their 19 goals across their first four matches are the most by an Italian side in its first four European Cup games. For Lens, a third straight Champions League defeat became the heaviest loss a French club has suffered in the competition, on a night when Odsonne Edouard, Abdallah Sima and Ismaelo Ganiou were already long-term absentees and former Udinese forward Florian Thauvin started in attack.
Fabregas Calls For Calm As Como Sit Fourth
Fabregas, whose side have now won six straight in all competitions, kept the reaction measured on Sky Sport Italia. “It is a wonderful night for Como, for all our fans and many lads here who are at the start of their careers, but they need to keep their feet on the ground, be humble, keep learning and not think everything will go well from here on,” he said. “They must keep working to continue these performances.” He even found a complaint in a 9-1 win: “I am angry over the goal we conceded, as we changed something in our defending with the three substitutions.” Noting that the scorer, Aguilar, is a former Monaco teammate, he added that he told him he had never seen him score a goal like that before.
The result lifts Como to fourth in the 36-team league phase table with nine points from four games, three points behind Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid and one point behind Arsenal, at the halfway point of the phase. This is a club that finished fourth in Serie A last season to reach the Champions League for the first time, and it now holds a genuine path to the top eight and a direct place in the round of 16. The closing fixtures are demanding, with AEK Athens at home and Real Betis away before Paris Saint-Germain and a trip to Barcelona in January, and Serie A champions Inter come first this weekend. “I want the whole city of Como to enjoy this moment, but from tomorrow we begin preparing for Sunday,” Fabregas said. On the evidence of Wednesday night in Lens, nobody left in this competition will treat that preparation lightly.
