Turkish-owned USL Dunkerque have won hearts across France with their heroic cup run
Whatever happens in the French Cup semi-final between little USL Dunkerque and mighty Paris Saint-Germain, les Maritimes have made history. The eternal magic of the Coupe de France has never been better illustrated than Tuesday’s game, a mismatch between the oil-rich French champions and the tiny Ligue 2 team which has heroically battled its way past Brest and Lille to reach the last four.
Returning to Lille where this historic fixture will be staged at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy rather than the 5,000-capacity Stade Marcel-Tribut in Dunkirk, USLD will be appearing in the final four of Europe’s most romantic cup competition for the first time since 1929.
In the intervening century, USLD have lived up to the club motto, Contre Vents et Marées (‘Against Winds & Tides’ or ‘Against All the Odds’), by bobbing around the shallower reaches of the French game, never able to break through to the top division.
Given Dunkerque’s current position in a play-off spot for Ligue 1, that situation may soon change. Three straight league defeats, however, point to a focus on this glamour tie which will attract tens of thousands of fans from the port city by the Belgian border, best known for its wartime heroics.
“Half of Dunkirk will be in the stadium,” proclaimed the headline in city daily Le Parisien. “A whole town is up for defying PSG in the Coupe de France.” And why not? It was only just over a month ago that USLD and their busloads of supporters braved the elements to overcome a 2-0 deficit 750km away in Brest on the wild Atlantic coast.
An unexpected goal on 65 minutes from former PSG youth player Vincent Sasso caused panic in the Brest ranks, exploited by veteran journeyman Opa Sanganté, currently aiming to reach the World Cup finals with Guinea-Bissau. His brace in the dying minutes right in front of the fiery away sector reversed the scoreline and set up this dream fixture with PSG.
Players and supporters celebrated wildly in the driving rain as the stadium emptied, repeating scenes that had unfolded in Lille three weeks before. Trailing the Ligue 1 side 1-0 until the 96th minute, Dunkerque struck back thanks to a header from Dutch signing Kay Tejan.
Trailing again, on penalties, the maritime side looked on from the centre-circle as Lille missed three spot-kicks, visiting keeper Ewen Jaouen saving one. The teenager and U-20 French international then stepped up to slot away the 14th and final penalty of the session as sudden death kept the 34,000 crowd agog.
For Dunkerque’s recently installed owners, these heroics have provided an unexpected bonus. Also overseeing Samsunspor, promoted to the Turkish Süper Lig in 2023 after 11 years away, Turkey’s Yildirim Group branched out that same year to take over these perennial underachievers on the English Channel.
Following the multi-club model being adopted across the globe, Yildirim is keen to cross-pollinate player resources and use Dunkerque as a springboard for younger members of the squad to shine.
These might include the hero of Lille Jaouen, and midfielders Maxence Rivera, Enzo Badeli and Ugo Raghouber, actually still on Lille’s books. Centre-back Nehemiah Fernandez, a youth player at PSG, is another fine prospect.
It’s been a good few months for the Yildirim family, whose conglomerate grew out of the business grandfather Garip set up in 1963, transporting construction materials at the port of Samsun on the Black Sea. Pater familias Yüksef then expanded operations around this busy container port, diversifying the company portfolio to be present in 57 countries across five continents today.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Yildirim holds a minor share in the major shipping concern CMA CGM, which has a base in Dunkirk, a fellow port city. As for football, Yüksef has long been involved in the club he supported as a boy, Samsunspor, where locally born prolific striker Tanju Çolak was a hero in the 1980s.
Since falling on hard times, the club now presided over by Yüksef Yildirim, after many years either on the board or as a major donor, is back with the Turkish elite. Long looking for a partner club in Western Europe, the Turks decided on France for the high standard of its academies and quality of its young players. It is also more affordable than England or Germany, and its lower division less physical than the Championship or Zweite Bundesliga.
Moving in at the right time, just after USLD’s promotion from the third-tier Championnat National in 2023, Yüksef Yildirim placed the Dunkerque project in the hands of urbane son Jasper, whose impeccable English reflects an international education and a lifelong love of basketball.
Officially, USLD are owned by Groupe Amissos, under the Yildirim umbrella and, much like their counterparts on the Black Sea, may soon benefit from an improvement in infrastructure. Though a hoops man, Jasper Yildirim is aware of the historic and emotional ties football clubs have to their cities in Europe – ‘Since 1909’ runs the text under the Dunkerque badge, depicting a dolphin leaping over a football.
Changes so far have been more than cosmetic, most notably the drafting in of Benfica B coach, Luís Castro, controversially replacing the hero of the successful 2022-23 campaign, Mathieu Chabert. While his arrival in March 2023 instigated a seven-game winning streak that pushed les Maritimes into an automatic promotion spot, by September he was gone.
Now 18 months on, all of that has been forgotten as the giantkillers of 2025 prepare to line up against one of the richest clubs in the world, whose last away game saw the Parisians put six past Saint-Étienne to stretch their lead at the top of Ligue 1 to 21 points.
None of that will count for anything, of course, once the white line has been crossed at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy at 9.10pm on Tuesday. USL Dunkerque to face Reims or Cannes at the French Cup final on May 24 at the Stade de France? Stranger things have happened at sea.
USL Dunkerque v Paris Saint-Germain, Stade Pierre-Mauroy, Lille. Tuesday, April 1, 9.10pm.
