Lille LOSC

Their nicknames are Les Dogues or simply Lille. The club colours are red and blue. They play their home games in a modern sanctuary built in 2012 called Stade Pierre-Mauroy. Its capacity for football matches is 50,186 people. It is a multi-purpose arena, which in its closed configuration as an arena for concerts or, for example, tennis and basketball, offers 28,010 seats.

The club's rivalry here is with its neighbour RC Lens. Both clubs are in the north of France, and so the Derby du Nord (northern derby) is played. While Lens is from an industrial city and represents more of a working class, Lille is from a modern city representing the middle class and openness to the world. Lille is the slightly more successful of the pair, both in terms of their games against each other and in terms of their first league appearances. The clubs first met in 1937, back then Lille was still playing as Olympique Lillois (not to be confused with Olympique Lyon).

Milestones and club achievements

The club under its current name Lille was formed in 1944 by the merger of the aforementioned Olympique Lillois and SC Fives. Both original clubs were founding members of Division 1 (now Ligue 1). Interestingly, Olympique Lillois won the first ever edition of this top competition of professional football in France, in 1932/33.

The current club, under the Lille banner, then won a total of three more titles, in 1946, 1954 and 2011. In addition to this, the club has finished runners-up 7 more times, most recently in the 2018/19 season. It also has domestic and European cup wins to its credit, with six French Cup wins, most recently in the 2010/11 season. They won the Intertoto Cup in 2004.