Six games. That is the whole story.
Dino Toppmoller will not be standing in the Lens technical area at Monaco on Thursday. L’Equipe went first with it on Tuesday afternoon, La Voix du Nord confirmed it within the hour, and the club has said nothing at all. Silence, at this stage, is its own kind of answer.
The 45-year-old turned down other offers this summer to take the Sang-et-Or job. He leaves with a record of six matches, the last three producing two defeats and a draw, the draw a 2-2 salvage operation at Le Mans on Sunday after Lens had gone two down. Poor form, certainly. A sacking after six weeks? That needs more explaining than the results provide.
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Bild says the row was never about the results
The German daily has a different version. Lens are said to have informed Toppmoller on Monday that Nelson Morgado, his assistant and closest ally since 2017, had been suspended. Bild reports that Morgado had rubbed parts of the club up the wrong way, French members of the technical staff in particular, by pushing for more intensity and more edge in training. That push appears to have ended his employment.
Toppmoller pushed back hard, reading it as the boardroom reaching into his own dressing room. Neither man backed down, and only one of them was ever going to survive that. Lens have confirmed none of it and commented on none of it.
Cahuzac steps in, and the paperwork is a problem
Yannick Cahuzac takes the team to the Principality. The Corsican came back to Lens this summer after two and a half years as an assistant at FC Lorient, and he has real support inside the building, starting with sporting director Jean-Louis Leca.
Making it permanent is where it gets awkward. Cahuzac is studying for the BEPF this season, the badge required to run a top-flight side. La Voix du Nord points out the course eats a serious amount of time, roughly a week away every month. A Ligue 1 club fielding a head coach without the BEPF is fined 25,000 euros per match.
Lens have a league campaign and a Champions League campaign running at the same time. Monaco is on Thursday.
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