Champions League: AS Monaco suffer heavy defeat to Club Brugge
© AS Monaco
For their return to the most beautiful of competitions, AS Monaco endured a forgettable evening on the pitch of Club Brugge to lose 4-1 in their Champions League opener.
Dominated from start to finish, the Monegasques never managed to find a solution against an outstanding Club Brugge outfit. Completely outplayed, Adi Hutter’s men returned to the locker room with a heavy 3-0 deficit. The Red and Whites were down 4-0 before Ansu Fati scored a consolation goal to mark his ASM debut, with this moment the only bright spot of this disappointing result (4-1).
A journey full of pitfalls
Monaco’s trip to Belgium seemed doomed from the beginning. Delayed by a technical problem ahead of their flight scheduled for Wednesday, the Red and Whites only landed in Bruges six hours prior to kick-off. Deprived of Denis Zakaria and Aleksandr Golovin, both injured for several weeks, this handed ASM extra adversity.
Inside a heaving Jan Breydel Stadium, Adi Hütter decided to renew his 4-4-2 by pairing Folarin Balogun and Mika Biereth at the forefront of the attack. The Austrian coach also started young talent Aladji Bamba, who put in a superb showing against AJ Auxerre, for his first Champions League outing.
A penalty won, then the descent
Roaring out of the blocks, the Belgians created the opening chance through Christos Tzolis, who missed despite being unmarked in the box (4′). Monaco reacted immediately, however, for Biereth won a penalty when he was brought down by Simon Mignolet. Maggnes Akliouche frustratingly had his spot kick saved by the experienced former Liverpool gloveman.
In the aftermath, the home side took the ascendancy. Carlos Forbs and Nicolò Tresoldi lit the fuses as they unleashed dangerous attempts. Philipp Köhn was in high demand and admirably held his own against repeated attacks (21′, 22′, 24′) and even reigned supreme in a clutch one-on-one with Tresoldi (27′).
The Monegasque defence eventually gave way in the 32nd minute when Hans Vanaken played in Tresoldi perfectly, as the German U21 ace proceeded to beat Köhn from close range (1-0).
Not long after, FCB quickly piled on the misery for Monaco. From a set piece, Raphael Onyedika capitalised on a disoriented Monegasque backline to double the lead (39′). Three minutes on, once more from a dead ball, Vanaken concluded his excellent first half with a wicked volley into the top corner (42′).
At the break, the toll was heavy for ASM. 17 shots on target for Club Brugge against only one shot for Monaco, which came on Akliouche’s penalty.
Changes without impact
Following 45 minutes of suffering, Hütter tried to revive his team with the entries of Mamadou Coulibaly and Thilo Kehrer. It was to no effect, though.
Aleksandar Stanković wasn’t far off from adding to the score (49’) and Forbs continued to wreak havoc on the ASM rearguard (52′).
The Monegasque boss then introduced George Ilenikhena and Fati, with the latter making his bow in his new colours. But Mamadou Diakhon definitively drove the nail in the coffin with a crafty dribble and powerful strike (75′) to make it 4-0.
Despite conceding 26 shots, ASM partially got their heads above water in the last 10 minutes to apply some pressure to their superior opponents.
In what was the last significant action of the encounter, Fati superbly found the back of the net to give Monaco something to enjoy from this tough night at the office.
Thiago Scuro shocked
Pumped up, general manager Thiago Scuro spoke to the media. “I was a little shocked by our performance, especially in the first half,” he asserted.
“It’s hard to be honest, because it’s not what we expected when preparing for this season. I was a little shocked by our performance, especially in the first half. Club Brugge certainly deserved to win this match given the number of chances they created, and the score could have been even harsher. We must all take responsibility, starting with myself, Adi, the coaching staff and the players. We must take this match as a lesson for the upcoming matches, because if we show this level of play, this attitude and this organisation on the pitch, we will not be able to achieve our objectives. We don’t want to make excuses after this performance. Once again, I want to be honest, we have to face the problems we encountered and try to find solutions.”
The Brazilian then made a point of apologising to the 600 Monegasque fans present.
Dier and Köhn react
Captain of the evening Eric Dier then shared his thoughts. “It’s always difficult to express yourself after a match like this – you mustn’t let yourself get carried away by your emotions. The best thing to do is to analyse with a cool head, look at what went wrong and what needs to be improved in order to try to remedy it. Obviously, we are unhappy with this result, they deserve their victory. We mustn’t feel sorry for ourselves or point the finger at anyone,” lamented the Englishman.
Speaking to Canal+, Swiss goalkeeper Köhn did not look for excuses after this loss, explaining: “We completely missed our match. The gap was too big. They deserved this victory. We just weren’t good enough. We’ll focus on the next match.”
Response crucial
Seven years later, Monaco found themselves back vs the team that caused them to suffer their heaviest defeat in their history at home in the Champions League (Club Brugge won 4-0 at the Louis-II in 2018). Faced with their old demons, the Monegasques once again were without an answer.
A reaction will be expected on Sunday against FC Metz at the Stade Louis-II (5:15 p.m.), as ASM will hope to gain some momentum ahead of their colossal UCL clash with Manchester City in two weeks’ time.