LILLE - HOME SHIRT 2015/2016
Lille Olympique Sporting Club are a French football club founded in 1944 in the northern industrial city of Lille, formed by the merger of Olympique Lillois and SC Fives. Known to fans as LOSC or Les Dogues ("The Mastiffs"), the club moved into the gleaming 50,000-capacity Stade Pierre-Mauroy in 2012 and count four Ligue 1 titles since the merger (1946, 1954, 2011 and 2021) among their honours - the 2010/2011 double under Rudi Garcia, fuelled by a young Eden Hazard, remaining the club's modern reference point.
The 2015/2016 campaign - during which this striking home shirt was worn - was a season of two halves. Ivory Coast head coach Hervé Renard had been appointed in May 2015, but a torrid start - one win from the opening eleven Ligue 1 matches, leaving Lille as low as 18th in November - cost him his job. In came veteran Corsican manager Frédéric Antonetti, who turned the season around in remarkable fashion, dragging Les Dogues from the bottom of the table to a 5th-place finish on 60 points (W15 D15 L8) and into the 2016/2017 UEFA Europa League third qualifying round.
The cup runs offered both promise and pain. A Coupe de la Ligue run saw Lille reach the final at the Stade de France, where they lost 2-1 to Paris Saint-Germain after holding their own in front of 68,000 fans. The Coupe de France exit at the round of 32 was a disappointment by comparison, but the league turnaround was the season's headline.
Moroccan playmaker Sofiane Boufal was the standout, finishing top scorer with 12 goals across all competitions despite playing as a creative number 10. Striker Yassine Benzia chipped in with six, and January loanee Éder - who would famously score the winning goal in Portugal's Euro 2016 final just weeks after his Lille season ended - added six more from his half-season at the club. Behind them, rising stars who would go on to far bigger things came through the squad: full-back Djibril Sidibé, defender Benjamin Pavard and goalkeeper Mike Maignan all wearing the LOSC shirt in 2015/2016.
Follow the club on X: @losclive
