Original Canterbury football shirt Lille OSC 2009/10

The 2009-2010 season of LOSC Lille Métropole saw the club evolve into the French football championship.

The pre-season began with a thunderclap: despite his good first season at the club as a coach (5th place in the championship and qualification for the first edition of the Europa League), Rudi Garcia was dismissed. After a few days of procrastination and the demonstration of the disagreement of the supporters of the club, the board of directors of the club and its president Michel Seydoux decides to backtrack by reinstating Rudi Garcia who sees his contract extended while the general manager of the club, Xavier Thuilot, is him dismissed. This rearrangement of the organization chart gives Michel Seydoux the chair of CEO of the Lille club.

Changes have also been made in the club's sports management with the departure of Pascal Plancque, head coach of the club's CFA team, and Vincent Espié, the physical trainer. They are replaced respectively by Rachid Chihab, until then in charge of the under-18 team, and by Grégory Dupont, former club trainer who returns after moving to Celtic Glasgow. Rudi Garcia is supported by a new assistant in the person of Claude Fichaux, from RC Strasbourg, and always by his faithful assistant Frédéric Bompart.

As for the players, the club leaders remain inflexible to the requests and desires of certain players (Adil Rami, Ludovic Obraniak), but still give up their best element of the previous season, the Brazilian Michel Bastos left to join the colony of former Lille established at the Olympique Lyonnais. On the arrivals side, French international goalkeeper Mickaël Landreau arrives from Paris SG, but injures himself (knee ligaments) during the first week of training with his new club and misses the first third of the season. Forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is on loan from AC Milan for a season and Ivorian attacking midfielder Gervinho arrives from Le Mans.