There are defeats that sting and defeats that haunt, and Slavia Prague will spend the coming days wrestling with the latter. For eighty-seven minutes they had defied logic, playing with ten men and leading a side who arrived with a point to prove. Then, in the space of three delirious minutes, everything they had built collapsed into rubble. Lens won 3-2, and they won it with a ruthlessness that will terrify the rest of the Champions League.

The scoreline barely captures the cruelty of it. Slavia led 2-1 with the clock ticking into stoppage time, their supporters already savouring an unlikely opening-night triumph against numerical odds. Florian Thauvin and Ruben Aguilar had other ideas. Two goals in the 91st and 93rd minutes turned jubilation to silence, and turned a famous win into a bruising lesson in how quickly this competition can devour the unwary.

For Lens, it was the sort of night that defines a campaign before it has properly begun. They were second best for long stretches, wasteful and frustrated, yet they refused to accept the story that was being written for them. When the moment came, they seized it with both hands and never let go.

Konecny's costly moment

The evening pivoted early in the second half. Four minutes after the restart, Mikulás Konecny was shown a red card, and Slavia's plans were rearranged in an instant. A team already facing a formidable opponent now had to do so a man light, with more than forty minutes still to survive. It should have been the beginning of a long, painful retreat.

Instead it sparked defiance. Two minutes after the dismissal, Danijel Sturm produced a moment of pure quality, collecting possession outside the box and lashing a left-footed shot into the top-left corner. Samuel Isife supplied the assist, and the Fortuna Arena erupted. A side reduced to ten men had somehow struck first, and the belief coursing through the home ranks was suddenly seismic.

For a time it looked as though that goal might be the making of an epic. Slavia dug trenches, harried and chased, and dared Lens to break them down. The visitors had the numbers and the possession but little of the composure required to make either count. Frustration crept into their play, and the minutes drained away with the underdogs still in front.

Sima keeps Lens alive

Lens needed something, anything, to prise the door open, and it arrived from a corner on 73 minutes. Abdallah Sima found space in the centre of the box and steered a right-footed finish into the bottom-right corner, hauling his side level at 1-1. It was scrappy, hard-earned, and thoroughly deserved for the pressure the visitors had been applying against a reorganised defence.

The equaliser might have deflated Slavia. It did the opposite. With the game seemingly settling towards a draw that would have flattered neither side, the hosts summoned one more surge of resistance. A set-piece situation in the 88th minute gave Sturm his second, another strike from outside the box, this time bending into the bottom-left corner. Ten men, two goals, a lead restored against every expectation.

At that moment the arena was a cauldron of noise and disbelief. Slavia's players celebrated as though the whistle had already gone, and their supporters began to imagine the headlines. But Lens had not travelled to surrender, and the final act belonged entirely to them.

Three minutes of ruin

What followed was breathless. In the first minute of stoppage time, Mezian Mesloub swung in a cross and Thauvin rose in the centre of the box to nod it into the bottom-right corner. Two-all, and the equilibrium of the entire evening was upended in a heartbeat. Slavia had barely gathered themselves before the storm returned.

Two minutes later, Ruben Aguilar administered the coup de grace, driving a right-footed shot from the right side of the box into the bottom-left corner. 3-2 to Lens, and there was no time left to respond. The Slavia players sank where they stood, ten weary bodies who had given everything and been robbed of it all in the final flourishes. Few defeats are as merciless as one conceded twice in stoppage time.

It was a triumph of persistence for Lens, who had refused to be defined by their earlier profligacy. They finished with three goals from three different scorers and, crucially, three points from a fixture that for so long had promised none. In a competition where margins are savage, they proved they possess the nerve to survive them.

The reckoning ahead

The table tells a stark story. Lens sit tenth on three points, one win from one, three goals scored and two conceded, their campaign launched with maximum reward and maximum drama. It is the kind of start that breeds confidence, and the manner of it — clawing back a two-goal deficit against ten men in stoppage time — will convince them they can go anywhere and prevail.

For Slavia Prague, the numbers read like an accusation. Bottom of the pile in 24th, no points, no win, two goals scored and three conceded. To have led for so long, to have shown such courage in adversity, and still to emerge with nothing is the harshest arithmetic in football. Sturm's double will feel like a monument to a night that should have been theirs.

The challenge now is psychological as much as tactical. Slavia must find a way to bottle the spirit of those eighty-seven defiant minutes without being poisoned by the memory of the three that undid them. Lens, meanwhile, march on with belief surging through them. This is a group stage that has already announced its capacity for cruelty, and both clubs leave the Fortuna Arena knowing precisely how sharp its edges can be.