PLAYER RATINGS | Lens 3-2 Toulouse: Ismaëlo Ganiou keeps Lens’s title hopes alive

PLAYER RATINGS | Lens 3-2 Toulouse: Ismaëlo Ganiou keeps Lens’s title hopes alive Ligue 1 McDonald’s, Round 30, 17/04/2026 RC Lens hosted Toulouse FC in a dry run of their Coupe de France semi-final on Tuesday evening. It was a topsy-turvy affair with the visitors starting brightly before a sending off allowed Lens to rescue all three points and keep their faint title hopes alive. The Match After a quarter of an hour, Toulouse were cruising as they stole to a 2-0 lead.

A catalogue of mistakes from the hosts would be capped by Robin Risser as the goalkeeper watched Cristian Cásseres’ strike from distance brush over his fingertips and cross the line in the sixth minute. Seven minutes later, defensive errors would come ahead again. From a corner, Malang Sarr fluffed his lines with a poor-headed clearance across the goal.

The ball found Santiago Hidalgo, who shifted it back across goal and to Seny Koumbassa, for his first professional goal. Yann Gboho would hit the brakes on his side’s fast start when he went into a needless and clumsy studs-up challenge on Adrien Thomasson. The referee’s initial decision of a yellow was upgraded to a red at a glance at the monitor.

With the man advantage, Lens finally grew into the game, keeping Guillaume Restes active. Florian Sotoca thought he had halved the deficit when he headed home at the far post, but his effort was ruled out for an admittedly soft push on the back of Rasmus Nicolaisen. Lens ratcheted up the pressure in the second half as they besieged Toulouse’s boxes with cross after cross.