Clermont were doing OK in their Ligue 1 game against RC Lens on Sunday afternoon – but only for half an hour. Then came the visitors’ forward Lois Openda who struck a four-minute hat-trick in spectacular fashion.The Belgium international scored three goals with his left foot in the space of exactly four minutes and 42 seconds, making his hat-trick the quickest Ligue 1 triple in this century.Loïs Openda 🇧🇪(2000) scored the fastest hat-trick in Ligue 1 history, 4 minutes!!!pic.twitter.com/saNfRQhFDI— Football Report (@FootballReprt) March 12, 2023 Senegalese goalkeeper Mory Diaw had the unpleasant duty of picking the ball out of his net three times in such a short span of time. You could hardly blame him because he had produced a good save to deny captain Florian Sotoca just a few minutes prior to Openda’s opener. But this was the day for the 23-year-old lad of Moroccan and Congolese heritage, who increased his tally to 12 league goals for the season. This was his second triple of the campaign since he bagged all three in his team’s 3-0 win over Toulouse in late October. That one took him 31 minutes, which is also impressive – but nowhere near his latest one.5 – In the space of five minutes, Loïs Openda equalled the fastest Ligue 1 hat-trick in the 21st century, along with Matt Moussilou (with Lille against Istres in April 2005). Rocket. #CF63RCL pic.twitter.com/8PxJoX2ccE— OptaJean (@OptaJean) March 12, 2023 Openda showed that he can also help his teammates score. With just over ten minutes remaining, he passed to substitute Alexis Claude-Maurice to find the bottom corner and make it an even more emphatic scoreline of 4-0 to the Blood and Gold.Lens head coach Franck Haise substituted Openda for young Remy Labeau Lascary shortly, giving the youngster a chance to impress – but more crucially, giving the travelling fans another opportunity to applaud the hat-trick hero.
