Lille LOSC UEFA Conference League Tickets

As repeat winners of the French domestic league, Ligue 1 (albeit with sizable intervals between their four titles), and a number of cup triumphs, it’s not uncommon to see Lille do battle in European competition.

Over the years, the French club, which sits in the far north of the country, has made an impact of sorts on both the UEFA Champions League as well as the UEFA Europa League (and its predecessor, the UEFA Cup).

A third-place finish in Ligue 1 earned Vahid Halihodzic’s side a place in the UEFA Champions League in 2001/02, albeit having to go through qualifying in order to bank a place in the prestigious group stage phase.

In the final qualifying round, Lille were drawn against Parma, and goals from Salaheddine Bassir and Johnny Ecker saw the club secure a valuable 2-0 win in Italy, which meant that the Serie A side’s 1-0 win in France was not enough to see the Italians through.

Lille, therefore, earned a group phase place where they were drawn alongside Manchester United, Olympiakos, and Deportivo La Coruna.

They narrowly lost their opener at Old Trafford, with David Beckham scoring the only goal of the game in the 90th minute, and they then defeated Olympiakos 3-1 at the Stade-Felix Bollaert and followed that up with a healthy home draw with Deportivo La Coruna.

A defeat in Greece was followed by an away draw in Spain against Deportivo, which meant that qualification to the knockout phase was out of the question, but a draw at home to Manchester United meant they would be demoted to the UEFA Cup, where they beat Fiorentina in the Third Round before losing to Borussia Dortmund in the Fourth Round to end their maiden European adventure.

Lille subsequently made it through to the UEFA Cup Round of 16 in both 2004/05 and 2005/06, losing to Auxerre and Sevilla, respectively. In 2006/07, they got out of their UEFA Champions League group to set up a Round of 16 clash with Manchester United, where they lost 1-0 in both legs.

2009/10, it was Liverpool who knocked them out of the UEFA Europa League Round of 16, continuing something of a worrying theme.

Seemingly qualifying for later knock-out rounds has been something of a stumbling block for Lille over the years.

In 2021/22, they topped their UEFA Europa League group and set up a Round of 16 clash with Chelsea but once again went down, losing 4-1 on aggregate to the Premier League side.