Around Europe: Monaco show Paris Saint-Germain the value of investing in French talent

Kylian Mbappe is the latest success story to come out of the Monaco academy. Dave Thompson / AP Photo
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It has seemed a while in French football since the country’s capital started having almost everything its own way.

Paris’s sole top-flight club have for close on six years enjoyed the sort of wealth that dwarfs the budgets of every other Ligue 1 institution, ever since Paris Saint-Germain caught the eye of Qatari investors.

As for events — heroic and romantic — glamorous Paris gets all the best gigs, most recently last July’s European championship final.

But 2017 has been the year the provincials bit back. The domestic table is, unusually for early April, led not by the PSG chasing a fifth successive title but by Monaco, representatives of a tiny principality on the Mediterranean. They, and neighbours Nice, have set the pace for much of the domestic season.

PSG are out of Europe, while Monaco, in the Uefa Champions League, and Olympique Lyonnais, in the Europa League, eye progress to prestigious semi-finals.

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And, now, in what Parisians may find even more of a challenge to their city’s status in the federal hierarchy, a major cup final will be staged outside their greater jurisdiction.

On Saturday night, the French Cup final takes place at the new Parc OL, in Lyon. It is a break of almost a century of a tradition that has had all France’s major domestic club finals staged in the capital or its suburbs.

It is a tough match, too, for a PSG wounded by the recent 6-1 defeat at Barcelona that made history in the Champions League, the biggest second leg comeback ever in the competition.

Monaco are this evening’s opposition, the most prolific goalscorers across all Europe’s major leagues this term. More than that, and more than the fact they look down on PSG in the table, Monaco are holding up some uncomfortable mirrors to PSG. They are setting examples to the Parisians on what money cannot buy.

There are several ironies here.

Tiny Monaco, a tax haven and a bling-bling yacht harbour, home of the highest concentration of millionaires in the world, is also the home of a club with a formidable record of turning young, mostly working-class teenagers into excellent footballers.

Monaco are into the Uefa Champions League semi-finals. Paul Ellis / AFP

PSG, meanwhile, have a contrasting reputation — for not developing fine potential footballers from the famously fertile suburbs and ghettos with its city’s radius.

Monaco, whose squad have an average age of 25, have so many watchable talents.

Kylian Mbappe, the 18-year-old striker, midfield general Tiemoue Bakayoko and dashing full-back Benjamin Mendy all grew up within commuting distance of the French capital. They are all precocious France internationals not because they made the grade with PSG, but did so many miles away, at Monaco.

It is the same Monaco where the likes of Thierry Henry — from the Paris outskirts — and three other members of France’s 1998 World Cup-winning squads came up through the ranks. It is from where footballers such as Anthony Martial, the young man — who comes from near Paris — Monaco sold for more than €40 million (nearly Dh157m) to Manchester United also developed.

Anthony Martial came through the Monaco ranks. Valery Hache / AFP

In defence of PSG, they did try, twice, to hire the dazzling Mbappe. But as Mbappe’s father Wilfried explained to France Football magazine, Monaco offered a more convincing argument. “They were sensitive to the fact he is an unusual player, and they weren’t going to try to mould him too much.”

Perhaps PSG would not have done, either, but Monaco’s fine record with young French players means the likes of Mbappe trust them.

For young French players at PSG, meanwhile, the success and vast investment of their Qatari patrons has often meant frustration.

Midfielder Adrien Rabiot, one of the few young French PSG players who has had regular first-team starts, once again last week spoke of his dilemmas.

It is whether to stay with PSG, or to move in search of more minutes on the pitch. At his club the stars are the South Americans, such as Edinson Cavani, Angel di Maria or Thiago Silva, or the imported young Europeans, such as Marco Verratti and Julian Draxler.

Monaco used to aspire to the same lavish cosmopolitanism. But after spending big on the likes of James Rodriguez and Radamel Falcao in 2013, they curbed their outlays and prioritised youth development once again.

On Saturday, that version of Monaco have another chance to claim they are as much the headquarters of France’s football future as the club from the capital are.

Player to Watch: Timo Werner

. Thomas Kienzle / AFP

On the face of it, not much went right for RB Leipzig striker Timo Werner during the international break. His much-anticipated first start for the Germany national side featured some jeering from supporters in Dortmund’s Westfalen arena, and a muscle strain that obliged him to leave the field 13 minutes from full time.

Quick recovery

But Werner insisted the experience “gave me a lot of pleasure”. There had been an extended build up. Werner had won 48 caps for various German national age-group teams before his call up, for the friendly against England in Dortmund 10 days ago. That is testament to the great expectations the 21-year-old has carried since he played for Germany Under 15s.

Leipzig leader

Werner grew up with Stuttgart, his hometown club, and became their youngest debutant at 17. He had made almost 100 appearances by the time Stuttgart’s relegation from the Bundesliga’s top flight, last May, put his career at a crossroads. The forward joined newly-promoted Leipzig, and the €10 million (Dh39.2m) fee paid for Werner signalled Leipzig’s bold ambitions.

Eastern enmity

The upwardly mobile club from Germany’s east had never spent so heavily on a single player. They had never been near the top division either, and a widespread resentment of RB Leipzig — who are financed by Red Bull, the Austrian multinational company — and their well funded, rapid rise from the lower divisions partly explains why Werner was booed by some spectators while on national duty.

Simulation

But there is another reason for the jeers. An incident earlier in the season, when Werner appeared to dive to win a penalty in a match against Schalke put him in the public eye. He later apologised for the gesture, but the notoriety has stuck with him.

Pace and poise

What the incident did not do was put off national manager Joachim Low, who feels Werner’s speed and the finishing skills that have yielded 14 goals for Leipzig so far this season can be an asset for Germany. The world champions have an abundance of fine attacking midfielders but not so many penalty-box specialists. “He is explosive and gives us qualities that few in the squad have,” Germany midfielder Toni Kroos remarked of Werner.

Uefa Champions League aim

Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Leipzig manager, congratulated Werner on his call up and was relieved the injury he picked up with Germany did not stop him training all week ahead of Saturday’s fixture against Darmstadt. Werner may not be fit for the starting XI, but should play a part in what is a crucial week of fixtures — three games in eight days — for a Leipzig whose hold on second spot in the table is a little precarious, as they target a place in Europe next season.

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