Unexpected Winners: AS Monaco 2016/17
There’s a very French feel to both our series at the start of this week after we took a look at Lyon in our most recent wonderkid factories instalment yesterday, but today we’ll be looking at AS Monaco for our unexpected winners series.
The 2016/17 edition of Ligue 1 was the fourth consecutive season that Monaco had spent in the top flight after promotion back there in 2013 from Ligue 2.
In the past, the Monegasques had been a feeder club for some of the top clubs around Europe and in France, but in the 16/17 season everything came together and a mixture of some seasoned veterans and incredibly talented youth helped to lead Monaco to the biggest prize in French football.
Their back four was mostly built on a spine of huge experience with Danijel Subasic commanding in goal and Kamil Glik and Andrea Raggi marshalling in front. Then an injection of pace from both full back positions, in Benjamin Mendy and Djibril Sidibe allowed Monaco to use overlaps to create overloads in the wide areas.
Manager Leonardo Jardim, assembled a skilful midfield with Thomas Lemar and Bernardo Silva on the wings causing havoc. This was offset with brilliant defensive acumen of Fabinho who would drop in to cover for his box to box midfield partner, Tiemoue Bakayoko.
The team from the south of France did most of their damage though, with the lethal strike partnership of Kylian Mbappe and Radamel Falcao whose combination of lightning pace and wonderful technical ability gave most defences nightmares.
Monaco racked up a highly impressive points tally of 95 points, scoring an unbelievable 107 goals on their way to the title. They beat out favourites Paris Saint Germain (who had won the previous four Ligue 1 titles) by eight points to clinch their first title since 2000.
Although they started the season well, beating PSG 3-1 on matchday 3, the title was very much up for grabs at the halfway point of the season. However, the Monegasques went unbeaten in their last 20 games of the season, winning 18 of those and only dropping four points.
PSG would knock Monaco out of both the Coupe de la Ligue and Coupe de France, but Jardim’s men also put together a dream run in the Champions League.
After getting through qualifying ties against Fenerbahce and Villarreal, Monaco were drawn in a group with Bayer Leverkusen, Tottenham and CSKA Moscow which they went on to win with 11 points.
They then faced Manchester City in the round of 16 and after a memorable 5-3 defeat at the Etihad, they won the home leg 3-1 to advance on away goals. Inspired by the goals of Mbappe, they then swept aside Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-finals only to be well beaten by Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus in the semis.
However, the team would be quickly disbanded by other top clubs in Europe. They would lose Mendy and Silva to Man City and Bakayoko to Chelsea in 2017, before being ransacked again the following summer with Fabinho joining Liverpool, Lemar going to Atletico Madrid and Mbappe joining PSG.
Monaco netted a whopping £370 million for those six players but have never been able to successfully rebuild and permanently shake the label of being a ‘selling club’.
A season that will long be remembered around Europe though, not just for the trophy but for the players produced by the Monegasques.