An incredible XI of players sold by Lille since 2010: Hazard, Yoro, Osimhen…
Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United have all bought players from Lille since 2010, making the French club one of the canniest transfer market operators in Europe.
Lille won the Ligue 1 title in 2012 and 2021, proving that their policy of selling players for the right price allows them to reinvest and remain competitive in both French and European football.
We’ve identified a full XI of players that have left the club since 2010 that will make you sit up and pay attention.
GK: Mike Maignan
Having failed to force his way in as first choice at Paris Saint-Germain, Maignan moved to Lille in 2015 for a fee of just €1million.
It took him a few years to find his feet, but after being given a chance by Marcelo Bielsa, Lille never really looked back and Maignan blossomed, becoming the regular number one by 2018.
After winning the Goalkeeper of the Year award in France for his performances throughout the 2018-19 season, keeping 17 clean sheets as Lille finished Ligue 1 runners-up, his time at the club would culminate with him lifting the league title ahead of PSG and keeping an astounding 21 clean sheets in the process.
Maignan left for Milan after his league-winning campaign in 2021, signing for €15million and replacing Gianluigi Donnarumma.
He won the Scudetto in his first season and has become one of the best goalkeepers in the world since, confident with his feet but also clutch when making game-winning saves.
RB: Djibril Sidibe
Signing for the club aged just 19 in 2012, Sidibe’s sudden rise with Lille was enough to convince anyone that he’d be destined for a career around the top of the game.
The French full-back spent four years in the north of France before moving south, signing for Monaco in 2016.
His tenure started strong and was reflected in him being capped for France 18 times between 2016 and 2018, but Sidibe’s form began to dip and a loan to Everton in 2019-20 is best remembered by him forgetting to put one sock on before coming on as a substitute.
He signed for AEK Athens in 2022, but is currently a free agent aged 31.
CB: Leny Yoro
Playing for the club from academy level right the way through to the first team, Yoro became the second-youngest player to debut for the club at 16 years, six months and one day in January 2022, taking the accolade from Eden Hazard.
Les Dogues managed his development carefully from that point, but with one of the best young defenders in world football on their hands, his ascent was inevitable. Yoro was in the first team by 2022-23, and a regular starter in the 2023-24 season, playing 32 out of 34 fixtures in Ligue 1.
After plenty of interest from Real Madrid and other clubs around Europe, it was Manchester United who won the race to sign the young Frenchman this summer. Yoro has moved to Old Trafford on a contract until 2029 for an initial £52.2million fee. Brilliant business for Lille.
CB: Gabriel Magalhaes
Snapping him up straight from Brazilian side Avai, Gabriel immersed himself in French culture immediately in a bid to get to grips with the European game.
A successful loan to Troyes in 2017-18 was followed by a brief stint at Dinamo Zagreb, but when that didn’t go to plan, he returned to Lille and immediately flew.
Gabriel was a regular alongside Jose Fonte by 2019-20 and very quickly played himself into the circles of top clubs, with Arsenal snapping him up in 2020 for £27million, just three years after arriving in France.
These days, the 26-year-old forms one-half of one of the most watertight defences in Europe alongside William Saliba and has made over 150 appearances for the Gunners.
LB: Lucas Digne
He’s been here, there, everywhere and back in his career, but what matters most is that Digne cut his teeth in France with Lille, rising to prominence before earning himself a move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2013.
Capped 46 times for France, Digne has found a home in the midlands with Aston Villa these days as an accomplished, Premier League-level full-back, but can also look back on his career and reminisce on stints at Barcelona, Roma – and Everton.
CM: Amadou Onana
Quietly one of the best midfielders in the Premier League and arguably the best outside the traditional top six, Everton did well to snap up Onana from Lille in 2022.
It quickly became obvious that he was too good to be battling relegation in England, though, and Villa have since all but agreed to sign the Belgian for around £50million.
Lille can be happy having made a sizeable profit on the €7million they paid for the Belgian, but at the same time frustrated that they were only able to enjoy him for one season.
CM: Renato Sanches
After the highs of breaking through at Benfica, EURO 2016 and signing for Bayern Munich, and the lows of getting lost in the shuffle, that ill-fated loan to Swansea and general stagnation, it was at Lille where Sanches was able to rekindle the flame.
They spent a club-record €20million on the Portuguese midfielder in 2019 and he enjoyed three strong seasons in the north of France, proving crucial as they won Ligue 1 in 2020-21.
He stayed for another season before joining PSG, but for a fee of just €13million in total. A rare miss on the finance front.
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RW: Nicolas Pepe
Pepe scored 13 times for Lille in a season where they were very nearly relegated from Ligue 1, before finishing the 2018-19 campaign with 22 goals and 11 assists.
His meteoric rise after only signing two years earlier was astounding and, naturally, prompted interest from Europe’s big guns.
Arsenal won the race for Pepe in 2019, paying a club-record £72million to bring him to the Emirates.
Lille, despite losing a top player, were rubbing their hands having only paid €10million to sign him back in 2017. It was brilliant business and has aged even better with how things have panned out since for the Ivorian.
‘Nightmare’ would be an understatement when describing the 29-year-old’s tenure at Arsenal, finally leaving the club permanently in 2023 having largely flattered to deceive.
He’s currently a free agent after a strong spell at Trabzonspor, but recently told L’Equipe he considered quitting football altogether during his spell in London.
CAM: Eden Hazard
A man who needs no introduction, Hazard’s rise to prominence at Lille is unforgettable and almost immediately prompted interest from the Premier League and beyond, with Manchester United and Chelsea battling for his signature in 2012.
The mercurial Belgian technician chose Stamford Bridge and while he might’ve missed out on Sir Alex Ferguson’s final Premier League title, it was undoubtedly the correct decision as he carved out a legacy as one of the greatest Premier League players of all time, winning two league titles, two Europa Leagues and the FA Cup.
Hazard also won the Premier League Player of the Season award and made the Team of the Year on four separate occasions. His £88million move to Real Madrid blew up in the face of both himself and Los Blancos and he’s now retired at 33, but what a ride it was.
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every club that’s won the Ligue 1 title?
LW: Rafael Leao
There was plenty of controversy surrounding Leao’s move from Sporting to Lille in 2018, signing on a free transfer after Leao believed he was eligible to unilaterally terminate his contract after ultras broke into the Sporting training ground.
It felt like a great deal at the time, signing the winger for nothing and selling him to Milan for €35million plus a sell-on clause just a year later, but the issue with Sporting eventually caught up to them in 2023 when Lille were ordered to pay the Portuguese side just shy of €20million.
Boring money discussions aside, Leao has been an absolute hit in the years since, going from strength to strength in Italy and blossoming into one of the most devastating one-on-one attackers in world football at his relentless best.
ST: Victor Osimhen
Are we all in agreement that officials at Lille have the best talent ID in world football now? Yeah? Good. Case closed.
Leading the line in this already stacked alumni XI is Osimhen, who spent just one season in the north of France with Les Dogues in 2019-20. It was a productive one, though, bagging 18 goals and assisting another six in what was his first season in one of Europe’s top five leagues.
That convinced Napoli to part with a club-record fee worth over €81million when including add-ons to sign him in 2020.
The Nigerian bagged 10 times in an injury-hit first season, but upped his tally to 18 the following year and then smashed in 31 goals in all competitions in 2022-23 to fire Napoli to their first Scudetto since 1990.