Michaël Cuisance rebuilds his career from Serie B and 2. Bundesliga to earn Lens move | OneFootball

Michaël Cuisance has rebuilt his career across Italy and Germany, and at 26 the new Lens midfielder has little time to waste.

According to L'Équipe, after a mixed loan at Marseille in 2020-21, 30 games for two goals and one assist, he slipped off the radar and was sold to Venezia that winter. Top-flight minutes since amounted only to a Sampdoria loan from January to June 2023, though he was still viewed in Italy as a promising talent.

At Venezia he featured regularly, 26 league matches in 2022 despite four different coaches, Paolo Zanetti, Andrea Soncin, Ivan Javorcic and Paolo Vanoli. He spoke of arriving with enthusiasm and his work without the ball was noted.

A reset came in the 2. Bundesliga with VfL Osnabrück, where he showed intensity and versatility as holding midfielder, No 8 and even right winger. He also collected six bookings and two red cards as the bottom club went down in June 2024. Hertha Berlin then bought him for €300,000 from Venezia in summer 2024 on a two-year promotion push that fell short, while he returned 9 goals and 11 assists in 63 league games as the side moved from 11th in 2025 to 7th in 2026.

He turned down Young Boys last summer to extend with Hertha, and was tracked in recent weeks by major German clubs. Sporting director Benjamin Weber called him a pillar in mid-May, but Lens paid €3.5m plus €1.5m in add-ons and a sell-on percentage to land him. Those close say adversity in Italy and revival in Germany have shaped him, and his ambition to return to the Champions League is now realised alongside new coach Dino Toppmöller, a former colleague at Bayern Munich.

Source: L'Équipe