Racing players and supporters are impatiently awaiting the first match of this competition in 21 years at the Stade Bollaert.
They’ve been waiting for this for days. It’s time for the final preparations at La Loco, one of the essential brasseries for Lensois supporters. It’s been two weeks since the draw that Frédéric, the boss, has been waiting for this moment. “Oh yes, we have planned much, much more than usual! It’s going to be fervent, with this mix of English people, Lensois… It’s going to be a great party. There, we dream, we do not yet realize“, he enthuses.
>> “This match against Arsenal allowed me to be in the light”: former Lensois Michaël Debève looks back on his legendary goal at Wembley in 1998
In the streets, hundreds of blood and gold pennants are there to remind you that the dream will come true this Tuesday evening: the Bollaert stadium in Lens will host a Champions League match. Besides, everyone is only talking about the match against Arsenal. It must be said: at each Racing match, there are 38,000 people at the stadium for a town of…30,000 inhabitants.
But this return of the cup to the “big ears” offers an unusual excitement: if Lens has been waiting for this return to the Champions League for 21 years, this match takes place against Arsenal… as in 1998, during the very first match of the history of the club in the Champions League. A poster which is undoubtedly the greatest achievement in the history of RC Lens, which won that year in the return match in England, the first victory for a French club in the legendary Wembley stadium.
“Luckily we have that in Lens”
Enough for some to indulge in some touching confidences, like on the terrace of Muriel, a fan of Racing, who “all known”, installed for 44 years just a stone’s throw from the stadium. And when his phone rings, it’s the Champions League anthem that resonates: “Hearing it resound in our Bollaert, in our temple, it’s going to be monstrous… The music of the Champions League is the music on my phone. Every time I hear it, I cry. Fortunately we have that in Lens. If there is no football, we have nothing…“, she slips, with tenderness.
Muriel was there, in the stands of the Bollaert stadium in 1998, during her club’s first match in the Champions League, already against Arsenal. 25 years later, the whole city still remembers it: for the occasion, Tuesday evening, the Lensois players will adorn themselves with the gold which adorned the tunic of their elders who won Arsenal (1-0) at Wembley on the 25th. November 1998. A special jersey in the hope of a similar feat.