AS Monaco have fast become flavour of the month. A youthful side with stunning talent all over the pitch, they’re a team you could fall for.
Since their victory over Villarreal in the Champions League play-off round, this team has gone from strength to strength, uncovering some gems within their youth ranks in the process. This can’t be put down to a simple purple patch at the right time, though. Monaco had to start their season early in order to hit the ground running for that play-off against fancied Spanish opposition. Perhaps after that victory it wasn’t a huge surprise that they started quickly, but keeping it up is amazing.
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The poster boy for their success in this domain is undoubtedly Kylian Mbappe. Last season, he made Monaco history by becoming the club’s youngest ever league goalscorer, usurping Thierry Henry.
Mbappe might be the youngest of Monaco’s stars, but he’s far from the only young gun. Only three of the victorious starting XI against Manchester City at the Stade Louis II last week were over 24 years old: the captain on the night, Valere Germain, goalkeeper Danijel Subasic, and centre back Andrea Raggi.
The old cliche about young players is that they’re fearless and no respecters of reputation. In dispatching so ruthlessly – in the first half of the second leg especially – of Manchester City last week, Monaco certainly showed that. But to do that once is not really a story, to do it for a whole season is extraordinary: the other cliche about young footballers is their lack of consistency.
Last season, Paris Saint-Germain won Ligue 1 by 31 points while Monaco and Lyon finished the season level on points with each other, but closer to the relegation places than the winners.
This season, Monaco are top of the table. But if that seems like a rapid shift in Ligue 1’s power structures, it should be noted that Lyon are currently only one point closer to Monaco than they are to Nancy, the third-bottom side. Essentially, the form of Monaco – and surprise side Nice – have matched PSG this year. Though admittedly, the Parisians have lost four league games already this season, compared with just two in the entirety of the last campaign.
Taking away their title rivals, though, Leonardo Jardim’s side are so far ahead of the rest of Ligue 1 that they are already assured of Europa League football next season through their league form. That’s no mean feat given we’re still in March.
It’s Jardim who deserves the credit. He has been in charge of the Monegasque side since Claudio Ranieri left the club in 2014. He has seen influential players like James Rodriguez, Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco and Anthony Martial all depart the club as well as Radamel Falcao, before the Colombian forward came back into the fold this season. The success hasn’t just been the obvious, though. Monaco didn’t just turn up this season and start winning.
In his first season, Jardim lost Falcao and Rodriguez. And instead of playing the free-flowing attacking football that we’ve seen this season, averaging 2.9 goals per game in Ligue 1, Monaco ended the season with the best defence in the league that year, conceding just 26 goals. Between December 2nd and April 2nd, they conceded just three league goals and knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League.
It takes a manager who knows what he’s doing to transform a side from a turgid, if solid, defensive unit to scoring at a rate of almost three goals per game in just two seasons. They were a team with a great defence, now they’re a team who barely even have a defence: full-backs Mendy and Sidibe are really deep-seated attackers, while even centre back Kamil Glik has come up with five goals and an assist this season.
In some ways, though, that transition is reminiscent of Arsenal under Arsene Wenger.
When the Frenchman – and former Monaco coach – took over at Arsenal, he inherited a fabled back four of Lee Dixon, Tony Adams, Martin Keown / Steve Bould and Nigel Winterburn. But he built on those solid foundations to form a team who could counter-attack at speed with young and exciting players. It was a mix of solid foundations, creative players who could master space, and pacey thrill-players who troubled defences. For Wenger’s Bergkamp, read Jardim’s Bernardo Silva, and for his Thierry Henry of course, there’s Mbappe.
As Wenger’s time at Arsenal starts to run out, it’s natural that we’d look back to the early days of his reign and remember what he achieved. And as we start to think of who a successor should be – whether that’s this season or one in the not too distant future – it probably makes sense to look at a man who seems to be achieving something similar to what Wenger made his name doing.
The speed, fearlessness and creativity of Monaco this season has been revelatory, just like the Arsenal of old. Jardim’s side are a team you could fall for. Just like Wenger’s nearly two decades before him.
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