Pierre Sage left his position as Lens coach on Monday to take over at English Premier League club Crystal Palace.
The 47-year-old Sage led Lens to its first Coupe de France title last season as well as a second-place finish behind Paris Saint-Germain in the French league.
Palace needed a new manager following the departure of Oliver Glasner, who chose to leave after nearly two-and-a-half years at the helm.
“It’s amazing to be here at Crystal Palace,” Sage said after agreeing a three-year contract. “I am excited by the history of the club and by recent seasons. Oliver Glasner achieved some amazing things and now I have to do the same. That’s why we come here with a lot of ambition.
“The dynamic here is really positive and we are in this mindset too. We won last year – and we want to continue in this way, in a new club, a new project, but with a lot of winning habits.”
Glasner helped Palace win the FA Cup in 2025 and the Europa Conference League title last month. They are the only major trophies in the south London club’s 120-year history.
“I am tremendously excited to welcome Pierre, who joins us off the back of a trophy-winning season at Lens as well as a fabulous second-place finish in Ligue 1,” Palace chairman Steve Parish said. “As we move into another European campaign off the back of our success in Leipzig, I know he will give everything to target more success for our fantastic football club.”
Aside from his success with Lens, which pushed PSG to the final weeks of the Ligue 1 title race, Sage will have also been an attractive option to Palace because he favors a similar approach — a three-at-the-back formation with wing backs and a sole striker — to the one Glasner deployed.
Lens thanked Sage, who was known as a highly approachable and humble coach, and who became hugely popular with fans and players alike.
“The club thanks its former coach for this historic season, marked by qualification for the Champions League and the triumph in the French Cup, and wishes him all the best in his future,” Lens posted on X.
Sage takes over a team that will be playing in the Europa League next season.
A former amateur player, Sage spent most of his coaching career in the shadows. He returned to Lyon in the summer of 2023 as director of the club’s academy after a stint as an assistant at second-division Red Star.
Just months later, he was thrust into his first proper coaching role. When he took charge at the end of November 2023, Lyon had fired Laurent Blanc and Fabio Grosso, and was bottom of the league with one win from 12 matches.
Lyon finished that season in sixth place and reached the French Cup final, losing 2-1 to PSG.
It was widely regarded as highly unfair when Lyon sacked him in January 2025 — midway through the season — despite Lyon sitting sixth in the league, four points off a Champions League spot and involved in the Europa League.
Sage transformed Lens with a brand of high-octane soccer which was based around rapid breaks and getting the ball out quickly to the wingers. He also instilled great loyalty among a tight-knit squad, making Florian Sotoca one of his two captains even though the forward was no longer a first-team regular.
Sage said Sotoca’s lieutenant role was crucial in the dressing room and in getting his ideas across.
Lens pushed PSG for most of the season and was unlucky to lose when the sides met in May, with Lens dominating play despite losing 2-0 at home.
PSG coach Luis Enrique was full of praise for how hard Lens pushed his team that day and said Sage fully deserved his Ligue 1 coach of the year title.
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