It’s been eight years since AS Monaco won the French Ligue 1 for the last time and was close to the throne of Europe. That 2016-17 campaign is one of the best ever for the club from the South France coastline, but less than a decade later, it seems like a far history. AS Monaco is just a shadow of the club it used to be and needs to look back to find the recipe for major success and a place near the top of the football team rankings.
The Pinnacle of Success
AS Monaco won the French Ligue 1 in the 2016-17 season for the first time since 2000. The “Red and Whites” finished the season in the domestic competition with 12 consecutive wins and a total of 95 points, eight more than the rival PSG. Wondering how big of a deal this was – just keep in mind that the year before, the team from Paris won the title with a 31-point advantage over Lyon and Monaco, who finished second and third.
They were equally impressive in the Champions League. Can you imagine a team going all the way from the qualifiers to almost making it to the Final? Fenerbahce and Villarreal were crushed in the qualifiers, Bayern Leverkusen, Tottenham, and CSKA Moscow were left behind in the Group stage and Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund were eliminated in the knockout stage. They fell short in the semis, losing 4-1 on aggregate to Juventus, which was the end of one of the best football stories of the decade.
Only four years before, AS Monaco was playing in the French second league, which makes this success even more sensational. But how did they really manage to do that?
Well, the combination of leadership in the front office and the right football mastermind by the line, brought success to Monaco. Coach Leonardo Jardim was in his third season with the team, and with the right support from the general director, Vadim Vasilyev, and sports director, Luís Campos, he managed to gather a great group of guys who made things happen on the pitch. During the previous season, Vasilyev signed Jemerson from Atletico Mineiro on a five-year, £7.6 million deal and later won the best deal award at the Globe Soccer Awards.
Going into the season, they brought back Radamel Falcao from a loan to Chelsea, and the Colombian was the team’s best scorer with 21 goals in the Ligue 1 season. Kylian Mbappé just turned 18 that year and was promoted from the second team to the first squad. The talent was obvious, and you didn’t need the most accurate football predictions by Tips.GG to realize that he was on the way to becoming one of the best players in the world.
Bernardo Silva, Fabinho, and João Moutinho were running the show in the midfield, and Jardim’s high-octane attacking style made AS Monaco one of the most fun teams to watch.
The Downfall
Following the championship season, AS Monaco’s players were targeted by many European top-level clubs. Mbappé was loaned to PSG; Silva and Benjamin Mendy were sold to Manchester City, Nabil Dirar to Fenerbahce, and Valère Germain to Marseille.
Of course, players come and go, and probably the biggest change was the departure of Luís Campos, who became the sporting director of Lille.
Despite all the personnel changes, AS Monaco was on top of the game, finishing second in Ligue 1 behind PSG but was eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League. That was something they could leave with, and the real downfall started following that season.
Fabinho left for Liverpool, Moutinho for Wolverhampton, Thomas Lemar for Atletico Madrid, and Tiemoue Bakayoko to Chelsea. Following these transfers, the club gathered around £340 million, but instead of going shopping for new players, they turned to their academy.
Strikers Pietro Pellegri and Willem Geubbels were the new hopes of the team that did not turn out well. After losing the first two games of the Champions League season, Jardim was sacked, and the club’s legend Thierry Henry stepped in in his place.
At the time, Henry was the all-time leading scorer for the France national team but was not even close to as successful as a manager. In late January, the club was second to last in Ligue 1 standings with only four wins in 20 games, and after just over three months in charge, Henry was sacked and Jardim returned to the sideline.
“It is with great sadness that I part company with AS Monaco,” Henry said in a statement. “Despite the struggles and difficulties that we encountered along my short journey, I have still thoroughly enjoyed my time at this wonderful club”, said Henry following the club’s decision.
At the same time, Vasilyev was fired, which ended an era of success in Monaco. That season was already gone, and Monaco barely managed to jump to 16th place and avoid relegation.
Going into the 2019-20 season, Jardim was sacked for good, and none of the next three managers stayed more than a year and a half in Monaco. Roberto Moreno, Niko Kovac, and Philippe Clement could not lead the team over PSG. None of them stayed long enough to develop a new identity for the team after the changes in the top management.
The team fell from a 60% winning rate from 2013 to 2018 with Vasilyev in charge to only 22% from 2019 to 2022.
Current Challenges and Efforts to Rebuild
Adi Hütter took over the team as the new manager in July 2023. Again, the team went into a rebuilding mode. They failed to qualify for the Champions League and finished in the round of 32 in the Europa League. Hütter led the team to sixth place in Ligue 1, the worst in three seasons.
Still, that could not be labeled as a failure, as the team’s budget is not as big as it used to be with Vasilyev in charge.
AS Monaco had a solid start to the 2024-25 season, being on top of the first couple of matchdays. However, PSG took over the lead, and the Ligue 1 title will stay a dream for Monaco. Still, Hütter is leading the team in the right direction, and if there is one team that can challenge PSG for the title, that is definitely Monaco.
