For some home matches, excellent though their show has been this season, Monaco still struggle to fill all the seats in their Stade Louis II arena.
The club’s fan-base may be growing but, home being a small Principality built around a rock, it is not overwhelming large. Sometimes, the leaders of France’s Ligue 1 play in the sort of atmosphere where you can make out clearly all of the shouts of the players on the field.
The louder, more frequent voices in a team whose young promise has thrilled Uefa Champions League audiences, tend to be those of the senior men, like Radamel Falcao, when the highest-scoring team in Europe are in attack.
When they defend, you hear from goalkeeper, Daniel Subasic, and from the totemic Pole, Kamil Glik, alias Monaco’s other big rock.
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The centre-half would stand out anyway, blond, tall and generally on top in his duels, of which he can anticipate many on Wednesday night as Monaco seek a place in the last four of the European Cup, defending a narrow 3-2 lead over Borussia Dortmund from the troubled first leg in Germany.
Glik knows his challenges will include searing pace and athleticism, from the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembele, and that he will be required to bellow out instructions to the young full-backs to his left and right when Dortmund penetrate the flanks. He can anticipate a busy night.
In the elite club competition Monaco have gambolled through with an underdog’s glee so far this season, attack has been their obvious forte. They have kept just two clean sheets in a 13-match sequence that began way back in the third qualifying round, has taken them past the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, and provided some of the most absorbing contests of the season.
A consensus has built that, thrilling though they are going forward, their defensive frailties leave them exposed and make the fairytale storyline of reaching the final implausible.
Kamil Glik during his time as Torino captain. Ander Gillenea / AFP
Certainly, Monaco have looked loose at times, and Subasic has had uncertain moments. But the handsome goal difference — a whopping +63 — that reinforces their three-point lead at the top of Ligue 1 tells its own story.
Yes, Monaco score freely, but only Paris Saint-Germain have conceded fewer goals in the French top-flight during this campaign. Monaco’s manager Leonardo Jardim, whose reputation before last year was for cagey, watchful football, has not forgotten his ideas of what makes a solid back line.
Which is why the club pushed for the recruitment of Glik last summer. Quite apart from his impressive aerial power, there is his sound technique as a passer.
There is also his undoubted leadership. At Torino, who received €8 million (Dh31.4m) from Monaco for the then 28-year-old, he had worn the captain’s armband, that club’s first non-Italian captain. He became something of cult figure in Serie A. A hip-hop artist even released a song celebrating Glik — “hardcore like Glik” is its refrain — and his rugged effectiveness.
Kamil Glik scoring for Poland against England in a 2012 World Cup qualifier. Piotr Hawalej / AFP
Born in Silesia, he moved to Spain to advance his football career as a teenager, was enrolled in Real Madrid’s feeder system for a period. It was in Italy, however, that his professional career took off.
After a false start at Palermo, he found favour on loan at Bari where the manager Giampiero Ventura — now in charge of the Italian national squad — recognised his talents and authority. Torino saw the Polish international in action with the club from the south and signed him.
Two seasons later he was their captain and recognised as a man for the big occasion. He scored goals in important matches, a useful target man in the opposition box. Monaco have benefited from that knack too, and noticed that Glik’s right foot can be a weapon with a dead-ball.
He has played a significant part, for a defender, in Monaco’s glut of goals this season. One more and he will reach double figures for 2016/17.
He knows a determined Dortmund will pressure his back line. The Germans, who carried clear symptoms of anxiety, less than 24 hours of the bomb attack on their team bus last Tuesday, into the first half of Wednesday’s first leg, have extra motivation and broad neutral support because of that attack.
“They know how to put pressure on and we had to resist a lot of it after our strong first-half in Dortmund,” Glik said. “We will need to be at our best.”
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