Monaco have a strange relationship with the Champions League. Far from perennial qualifiers, they have still enjoyed plenty of memorable runs through Europe’s premier club competition, most notably when they reached the final in 2004 before losing out to Jose Mourinho’s Porto. They have also made it to the semi-finals on three occasions since the tournament rebranded in the early 1990s, but none of their continental campaigns have captured the imagination quite like their journey to the final four in 2017.
Led by manager Leonardo Jardim, Monaco bewitched fans around the globe with their high-octane style of football, as a number of previously little-known players became household names almost overnight, leading to inevitable transfer interest from the world’s richest clubs. Though they eventually missed out on the final, losing to Juventus in the semis, Monaco – who also won Ligue 1 at Paris Saint-Germain’s expense – were the talk of the European game after knocking out Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and Thomas Tuchel’s Borussia Dortmund.
Of course, the star of that team was then-teenager Kylian Mbappe, who emerged as a fully-formed attacking superstar and set about tearing defences apart with his blistering pace and unerring finishing ability. He scored six goals in nine Champions League appearances that season before joining PSG at the end of the campaign, with the French superstar’s exit the first domino to fall in what would be a dramatic fall from grace for Les Monegasques.
Monaco would fail to win any of their subsequent 12 matches in the Champions League over the course of the next two seasons before enduring a six-year absence from the competition proper until securing a place in the 2024-25 league phase, where they are in a strong position to qualify for the knockout rounds ahead of their penultimate game against Aston Villa on Tuesday.
Mbappe, meanwhile, has gone from strength to strength, and while he is still waiting to lift his first European Cup as he begins to round into form after a shaky start for new club Real Madrid, many of his team-mates from that memorable Monaco side of 2017 have not enjoyed the same levels of success. But where are they now? GOAL has everything you need to know: