Ligue 1 2026-27 kicks off after Lens' warning shot to PSG

Ligue 1 2026-27 gets under way this Friday 21 August with Marseille against Strasbourg at the Vélodrome and closes on Sunday night with PSG hosting Rennes at the Parc des Princes. The winners of the last two Champions Leagues arrive having had the league title in their pocket for five years, but also with a fresh warning ringing in their ears: last Sunday they lost the French Supercup to Lens.

The Trophée des Champions stayed at Bollaert

The French season already has its first trophy, and it did not go to Paris. On Sunday 16, in front of 38,223 spectators inside a boiling Bollaert-Delelis, Lens won the Trophée des Champions 1-0 through a 32nd-minute Florian Thauvin goal, a strike that beat Matvey Safonov. They did it against the tide, too: Kyllian Antonio was shown a red card in the 39th for a rough challenge on Maghnes Akliouche, and Lens defended their lead for more than fifty minutes with ten men.

Luis Enrique's PSG pushed to the very end — Fabián Ruiz had a goal ruled out for a marginal offside and Nuno Mendes was sent off in the 87th — but the trophy stayed in the north. It is the first Trophée des Champions in Lens' history, and they contested it as winners of the Coupe de France, also the first of their existence, lifted with a 3-1 victory over Nice in May. In the stands sat a distinguished onlooker: Zinédine Zidane, France's newly appointed head coach.

What last season left behind

PSG won the 2025-26 title with 76 points, their fifth in a row, ahead of Lens on 70, Lille on 61, Lyon on 60 and Marseille on 59. PSG, Lens and Lille went into the Champions League; Lyon dropped into the qualifying round and OM into the Europa League. Nantes, after thirteen straight years in the top flight, went down along with Metz; Troyes come up alongside a returning heavyweight, Le Mans, back after sixteen years. The league keeps its 18-team format.

Matchday one, game by game

• Friday 21 (8.45pm CET): Marseille v Strasbourg
• Saturday 22 (5.15pm CET): Lens v Auxerre
• Saturday 22 (8.45pm CET): Nice v Lorient, Le Mans v Brest, Toulouse v Lyon and Troyes v Paris FC
• Sunday 23: Angers v Lille (3pm CET), Le Havre v Monaco (5.15pm CET) and PSG v Rennes (8.45pm CET)

The whole round is shown on Ligue 1+, the league's own platform. The champions' opener on Sunday night doubles as a reunion: Rennes finished sixth last season and qualified for the Conference League.

The Paris market: new faces and a record sale

PSG have worked the market in both directions. In came Ferran Torres from Barcelona — confirmed on 15 August, five seasons, around €45m — Maghnes Akliouche from Monaco for around €50m, who has already debuted in the Trophée, and Lucas Digne. Out went Gonçalo Ramos to Milan for a fixed €74m, rising towards €90m with add-ons, the biggest sale in the club's history: he leaves with 45 goals in 131 appearances and two Champions League titles in his suitcase. The great unknown remains Bradley Barcola: Liverpool are pushing, but the reports on his future contradict one another and, as of the 19th, there is no agreement.

The rest of the French market

The loudest exit outside Paris was Mason Greenwood's: Marseille sold him to Fenerbahçe for €39m after two seasons and 48 goals. Monaco also cashed in, selling Aladji Bamba to the Turkish club for €35.5m on top of Akliouche's departure. Among arrivals with a back story, Axel Witsel signed for Nice at 37, and Lyon sold Afonso Moreira to Leverkusen for €28m.

Lyon's Champions League place on the line next week

While the league gets going, Lyon have another final on their minds. In the first leg of their Champions League play-off, last night in Istanbul, they drew 1-1 with Fenerbahçe: Loïs Openda put the French side ahead and Greenwood, of all people, equalised shortly after half-time. The return leg is on Wednesday 26 in Décines, with the league phase — and its fixed €18.62m prize — at stake. France's fourth place no longer brings direct entry.

A country with a new head coach

The backdrop to the opening weekend is a changing of the guard with the national team: Zinédine Zidane was named France's eighteenth head coach on 28 July, on a four-year contract, after the fourth-place finish at the World Cup and Didier Deschamps' departure. He will take charge for the first time in September's Nations League, and his presence at Bollaert on the 16th was read in France as a statement of intent: the new boss plans to watch Ligue 1 closely.

Favourites? PSG, of course, winners of everything they have entered for two years. But Thauvin's Lens have just shown across 90 minutes that they intend to punish every lapse this season, and behind them lurk a solid Lille, a Lyon with European urgency and a Marseille in mid-rebuild. Rarely has a fifth consecutive title been defended on so many open fronts.

"A champion put on notice, a Lens side with their first August silverware in the cabinet and a Lyon playing for 18 million in Décines: Ligue 1 returns with more talking points than ever."