After a gruelling campaign that saw AS Monaco miss out on Champions League qualification, the Principality club have turned the page thanks to the appointment of Filipe Luís.
Adi Hutter began last season as Monaco manager, but following his exit in October, it was Sébastien Pocognoli who saw out the rest of the campaign. Despite a strong run through February and March, five points from a possible 18 in the final six games of the Ligue 1 season saw them slip down the top, out of UCL contention and into the Europa Conference League qualification spot. It is a run that cost Pocognoli his job.
As Les Monégasques’ CEO, Thiago Scuro, took questions from the press on Wednesday, he did so alongside a new face, that of Luís. Scuro was not interested in retracing last season’s failures. “We don’t want to be here spending time discussing what happened behind us. We are here today to present the future,” said the Brazilian.
“There are a lot of new faces in different positions. It’s needed to bring new energy, to bring more positivity. The club is facing a transformation in terms of investments, standards, processes, and procedures, and sometimes you have people who, instead of facing the challenge and finding solutions, prefer to complain. They prefer to be negative. This is what we don’t want here. We want good energy. We want positivity. We want hard-working people,” added Scuro, whose own position came under question, at least from fans, but not from the club’s hierarchy.
Monaco already active in the transfer market
“I’m here, aren’t I? There were never talks [with the hierarchy] on the topic of my future,” said Scuro. Reassured, he has spent the past weeks preparing the upcoming season. There have already been incomings and outgoings. Nazinho, Mathys Detourbet, Sadibou Sané, and Aymen Assab have arrived; Ansu Fati’s loan has been made permanent; whilst Caio Henrique and Kassoum Ouattara have completed departures. The new faces were present in training as the squad, or at least the players not competing in the ongoing FIFA World Cup, returned for pre-season training.
Luís was getting stuck in, too, sliding into challenges during the drills. With Monaco in the market for another left-back, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the former Atletico Madrid and Chelsea full-back could still do a job in the position. “Why do I get involved in training? Well, I think I have a lot of energy,” joked Monaco’s new manager.
He continued, “I think when I’m together with them on those training concepts, they can understand better and more easily. It’s the way I always feel comfortable training my players. I think it’s easy for them to understand when I’m there with them and doing the concepts with
them and stopping and correcting all the time. And, of course, this is a process now. We have to train because there are a lot of things to teach.”
Having only retired from professional football in 2024, the Brazilian’s time in management to date has been brief, but he has already garnered quite a reputation, having won the Copa Libertadores with Flamengo. At Wednesday’s presentation, Luís admitted that there were calls from other clubs (reports had suggested he was close to taking charge at Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen), but he was tempted to join the Principality club following talks with Scuro, Carlos Avina, and president Dmitry Rybolovlev.
“Our ideas matched,” said Luís. “I’m a person with really, really high ambitions. And they understood that. But above all, I think the process is to see the team play the way I want to play, and I think our ideas are similar. Every time we speak, we have similar ideas. So everything was easy because we created this connection really easily […] it is really a pleasure to be here.”
Luís receives pointers from Fabregas, Carrasco, and Lemar
He is in a period of acquainting himself with Monaco, a club that he revealed he almost joined as a player. He has already spoken about the club with friends and former Monégasques such as Cesc Fabregas, Yannick Carrasco, and Thomas Lemar, he added. Luís revealed that he had already watched plenty of Monaco’s games from last season and has identified what can be improved upon.
“There were a lot of good things. Of course, some things are going to change, but not many huge changes,” said Luís, who emphasised the importance of a more solid and resilient defence. “We can attack really well, but if we concede goals every game, it’s not going to be good. I always say that attack wins games and defence wins championships. We need to be solid,” added the Brazilian.
Winning the Ligue 1 title isn’t quite on the menu, however. Luís said that “everyone knows the distance” between PSG and the rest of the competition. Improving on last season is the objective, although the new manager is under no illusions as to the difficulty of the task. “We know that it will be a season with some changes,” began the new manager, who would like to work with the likes of Folarin Balogun, Maghnes Akliouche, and Lamine Camara, but is accepting of the fact that he may not get the chance. “Every coach wants to work with the best players, but we know that the market is really strong and pushing for those talents,” he said.
Regardless, Luís says Monaco “want to be as high as possible.” Scuro added that the objective is to return to the Champions League for the following season. After last season’s struggles, the club also want to reconnect with their fans, and that is also on the agenda for the new manager. “I want the supporters to see the team playing and feel connected, feel represented,” he says. There is plenty for Luís to get stuck into and, in training, he is already doing just that.
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Photo credit: Luke Entwistle / Monaco Life