Monaco Won a Ligue 1 Title, then Decided to Blow it all Up

When people talk about Monaco, the images that come to mind are beautiful, yacht-filled waters, Formula 1 races, and exuberant amounts of wealth heading into one tiny city-state near the southern French border. However, what many people don't know is the success AS Monaco had in the footballing world. There was a point in time where it was believed Monaco could emerge as the next big French football club. They had a spree of fantastic success from 2016 to 2018, where they knocked English powerhouse Manchester City out of the Champions League in the Round of 16, they dethroned PSG as the champions of France in 2017, and developed a world-class talent in Kylian Mbappe. After 2017, the sky was the limit for Monaco. The House of Grimaldi and Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev invested millions of Euros into the club in hope of creating a dominant squad that could match the size and success of their rivals, PSG. So, why did it all come crashing down? How did Monaco, on the verge of becoming a reckoning force in Europe and France, collapse? 

After their 2017 Ligue 1 win, the club was in a great position to repeat their triumphs. Most of the squad that had knocked out Man City and Dortmund in the 2017 Champions League was still intact. It was centered around the attacking trio of Colombian striker Radamel Falcao, Portuguese attacker Bernando Silva, and completed by French wunderkind Kylian Mbappe. Young wingers in Mbappe and Silva were key for setting up Falcao's clutch finishing the final third and they contributed their fair share of goals as well. The midfield was anchored by Joao Moutinho and Fabinho, a strong combination for keeping the ball out of their net and making sure it ended up in the opposition's goal. It also helped to have strong defensive pieces in Benjamin Mendy and a solid goalkeeper in Rui Patricio. Somehow, this squad couldn't be kept together. This is the problem smaller clubs run into after a few summers of extreme spending on transfers and technology to enhance player performance. Monaco had been known to sell players to generate funds in the past; this was a different scenario though. They had generational talents in Silva and Mbappe, and it was only natural for bigger clubs to express their interest in these players. Summer 2017 was the beginning of the end. 

The first major piece to move on from Monaco was Bernando Silva. His flair and attacking style garnered a lot of attention from Manchester City, who were gearing up themselves for serious title contention in England and in the Champions League. Silva left Monaco without any qualms; he had done his part in helping win Ligue 1, so there were fewer repercussions on losing him to an English club that was willing to pay up to $60 million for the Portuguese attacker. Silva's loss was felt the following year but the club didn't feel hurt. They were incredibly confident they could repeat as French champions and maybe push further than they had ever in the Champions League. 

Not much longer after Silva joined City, teammate Benjamin Mendy would follow suit. Together, he and Silva's sales raised about $100 million in funds for the club. There was hope that the House of Grimaldi and Rybolovlev would invest heavily in the transfer market heading into the 2017-18 season. Especially after the news broke in Paris: Neymar, Barcelona's prized left-winger, decided he didn't want to live in the shadow of his teammate Lionel Messi, and in a shocking turn of events, PSG paid the $222 million release clause for Neymar. The Parisians watched as their vice grip over the French league slip away after Monaco's win in 2017; now PSG was making sure it would never happen again with Neymar's addition to the squad. However, PSG wanted another world-class talent, ideally a French-born talent. They found one in Kylian Mbappe. Monaco was adamant they would not sell Mbappe for less than $180 million and considering PSG just spent most of their transfer budget for 2017 on Neymar, Monaco figured was no chance they could afford to buy Mbappe. However, the club was still in need of money to pay off debts, so the board gave PSG an offer: a two-year loan deal for Mbappe with an obligation to buy, meaning if PSG wanted to keep Mbappe permanently they had to pay his release clause following the end of his loan spell. Seems like a tough choice to make right? Of course not. PSG accepted the terms without any question and just like that, Monaco's golden boy was shipped off to Paris to link up with Neymar and Edinson Cavani. This was a bewildering move made by Monaco management. They had insisted they wouldn't sell Mbappe unless someone paid for him in full, yet they just gave PSG two free years of Mbappe's services. 

Monaco remained undeterred by the loss of Silva, Mendy, and Mbappe; they actually posted decent results in 2017-18, finishing second in the French league behind...you guessed it, PSG. The window seemed to be closing for Monaco. They were looking like a one-season wonder; almost like France's Leicester City. Now, it would make sense to not sell all of the remaining pieces that kept them competitive. But football doesn't work like that; a club like Monaco was hurting for money. Coupled with their attendance rates dropping, they began to regress and implode internally. The second-place finish was just a cover-up for how things were really going at the club. The revenue streams dried up fast so they were forced into selling more players and the next season saw a ton of big names leave. Summer 2018 saw the departures of Fabinho, who took his services to Liverpool while Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio were acquired by Wolverhampton, an English club who just got promoted to the Premier League from the country's second tier. In less than three seasons, Monaco had lost most of their attacking front, their two best midfielders, and their star goalkeeper. If this wasn't an incredibly disappointing situation for fans of the club, it would only get worse. Not too early into the 2019 campaign, Falcao, the lone star striker who had stuck around through all the faces coming and going, terminated his contract to join Galatasaray in Turkey. This was the end of the era of the perhaps the best Monaco team ever assembled. 

Since the 2017 title win, Monaco has struggled to remain afloat in the French league. They have been shifting through manager after manager, selling more promising players to bigger clubs, and haven't been in Champions League or Europa League for close to two years. What made it even worse were some of the triumphs their former players have gone on to win. Mbappe developed into the world's next great footballer, even getting compared to his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo. At age 18, he was a starter for the French national team and went on to win the World Cup in Russia in 2018. Mbappe was named Golden Boy for the best young player and won a Puskas award afterward. Following the World Cup, PSG paid the release clause to Monaco, making Mbappe a permanent signing and he won three Ligue 1 titles with the Paris club. Over in England, Bernando Silva had also become a mainstay in the Manchester City attack, and they went on to win the Premier League twice since he left Monaco in 2017. Fabinho followed up with two Champions League final appearances with Liverpool, one of which they won, and a Premier League title in 2020. Moutinho and Patricio became some of the most influential players in Wolves' rise to contention in England and even helped them qualify for Europa League in 2019. Today, Monaco is attempting to get back to elite form, but they are continuing to struggle to find suitable players. They've settled for aging talents like Cesc Fabregas and Wissam Ben Yedder, and their young core isn't looking as strong as it had in the past. It's sad to see a club that had so much potential blow it all up during the midst of their best years. Poor decision making by club directors can be blamed but at the end of the day, it can't be stressed enough how amazing Monaco performed during that short window of time.