The club from the Cote d’Azur won away from Bayer (3:2) in the first match of the play-off round of the Europa League.
Bayer – Monaco
There is one curious and, perhaps, not very beautiful episode in the European Cup history of Monaco and Bayer. It happened almost a quarter of a century ago, in the 1997/98 season. In the group stage of the Champions League, the teams played what is now commonly referred to as the “Scandinavian draw”, although this term was still six and a half years away.
Then the following format was used: six groups of four participants, the winners plus the two best teams from among the runners-up go to the playoffs. Monaco and Bayer ended up in the same quartet, met in the last round, and the alignment turned out to be such that a draw suited both of them – in this situation, the Monegasques became the first, and the Germans went further from the second position. We played 2:2, and Bayer led 2:0 half an hour before the end, and in the last minutes the famous goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, who then played for Monaco, just sat leaning against the post and, laughing, watched how field players roll the ball. The smile never left referee Pierluigi Collina’s face.
But this is nothing more than a funny story from the past. Now the poster for the Russian fan could be the confrontation between two former RPL stars – Alexander Golovin and Serdar Azmun. But if the Russian midfielder is in perfect order in the first month and a half of 2023, and the recent goal against PSG can be considered the peak, then the Iranian striker is doing much worse so far. After the 2022 World Cup, he only entered the field twice, spending a total of 28 minutes there (18 + 10). There were even rumors about a return to Russia, and in the January transfer window, the option with Marseille seemed the most realistic, but the transition there eventually fell through. In the match with Monaco, the striker remained on the bench.
And there is also Andrey Lunev. The ex-goalkeeper of Zenit hardly plays for Bayer (only one meeting this season, and even that one on August 13), and they somehow forgot about him. Plus, recently the Russian has been suffering from a back injury. Lunev did not get into the application for Monaco, but the reason to remember him happened already in the 9th minute, when the main goalkeeper and Bayer captain Lukas Hradecki made a wild mistake. Finn unsuccessfully handled the ball after a pass from a defender, fussed, allowed himself to be covered by Brel Embolo, fell and, as a result, rolled the ball himself over the goal line. However, it is unlikely that this will cost Hradecki a place in the line-up in the future.
But Golovin had another good match. Nominally, Alexander took the place of the left midfielder in the 4-4-2 scheme, but during Monaco attacks, as usual, he regularly shifted to the center. True, these attacks were not particularly many – the case when an early goal influenced the course of the meeting. Defensively, Golovin worked extremely disciplined, helping Kai Enrique defend against the sharp and speedy Jeremy Frimpong and Moussa Diaby.
It was these two who built the return goal of Bayer shortly after the break – the Dutchman gave from the flank, and the Frenchman scored – but here there was a collective miscalculation of Monaco as a whole, and the fast attack of the hosts turned out to be exemplary. Like the end of Diaby.
In the attack, every action of Golovin looked timely and reasonable. Twice his passes could well have been assists. At the 21st minute, the Russian midfielder gave a cool cutting pass to Embolo’s move, but he did not hit the near corner, and at the end of the first half he rolled the ball under the blow of Krepen Diatta – Bayer saved Hradecky.
After the break, the attacking activity of Monaco completely faded, mainly due to the fact that in the first 25 minutes of the second half, Bayer, who dominated the field, looked very good. The second goal of the hosts turned out to be no less beautiful than the first one – there was a heel pass from Yasin Adly, and a slalom from one of the main German talents Florian Wirtz. At some points, Monaco was dragged by goalkeeper Alexander Nyubel.
Against this background, the second goal of the guests looked illogical – Diatta charged great from a distance, so Hradecki did not even jump. But this does not make the goal any less important, especially considering that Monaco ended the match, in fact, with ten men – Guillermo Maripan was injured, and all the substitutions were already exhausted.
And in injury time, Disasi finished off Bayer. The first round is for the team from the Cote d’Azur.
