LILLE, France (AP) — When Lille lost its opening Champions League match in September, only a few bold gamblers would have bet on the Ligue 1 side to qualify for the last 16 of European club soccer's elite tournament.
But the northern France side defied all the odds and concluded the league phase campaign of the competition with a 6-1 thrashing of Feyenoord on Wednesday.
“We’ve done the job,” Lille goalkeeper Lucas Chevalier said. “We’ve got some absentees but we’ve got that extra bit of spirit. We were in a group of death and now we’re seventh. We’ve worked hard, we’ve been rewarded and we can dream even more.”
It was the first time Lille scored more than three goals in the Champions League.
Feyenoord center-back Gernot Trauner set a record that his team will not be celebrating. According to Opta statistics, Trauner became the first player to score two own goals in a single Champions League game.
The win saw Lille finish seventh in the standings. With five wins from eight matches, Lille was the standout French club — Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco and Brest will have to go through playoffs.
Lille pulled away with four second-half goals after Osame Sahraoui opened the scoring in the fourth minute.
“We couldn’t have wished for anything better,” Lille coach Bruno Genesio said. “The main objective was to win. We finished this group phase in the best possible way, finishing seventh, and that’s a great source of pride for my players, my staff and all the hard work we’ve put in.”
Despite the big loss, Feyenoord advanced to the playoffs stage.
“It’s a tough one, a tough result,” Feyenoord coach Brian Priske said. "We’re happy we’ve qualified. But today, we really wanted to try and get into the top eight. When you don’t do the basics, and you don’t put the effort in, you won’t get the rewards. I know we have the quality to pick up the points, but today we weren’t good enough.”
Earlier, French police said 86 fans of the Dutch team had been refused entry to France and that 30 had been arrested at the border. France’s interior ministry said a travel ban was introduced because of a “real and serious risk of confrontation” between fans of the two teams.
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The Associated Press
