Monaco: Monaco have scored plenty of goals this season and boast one of European football’s most exciting newcomers in striker Kylian Mbappe but that might not be enough to break down the defensive wall of Juventus in the Champions League semi-finals.
Mbappe, 18, has scored 18 goals in his last 18 competitive games, including three in the 6-3 aggregate win over Borussia Dortmund in the last eight.
The pacey forward provides a symbol for the rise of a fine counter-attacking team featuring other dangerous players such as Colombian marksman Radamel Falcao.
It takes more than that, however, to impress Juventus, the tightest defence in Europe’s top club competition with just two goals conceded in this campaign.
“Even Barcelona could not score in two games against them so it will be complicated for us”, Monaco’s Poland defender Kamil Glik said ahead of Wednesday’s first leg in the principality.
The Italian champions, who advanced to the last four with an aggregate 3-0 win over Barca, were held to a 2-2 draw at Atalanta in a rare defensive mix-up in Serie A on Friday.
Their pedigree and record for being impregnable when it matters, however, suggest Juventus should be regarded as the favourites.
“Monaco have technical and tactical qualities as well as talented young players,” Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said.
“They do not have the same history as Juventus but that does not mean it will be easy for us to make it to the final,” he added.
While Allegri can rely on a fully-fit squad, including legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, a World Cup winner and multiple Serie A winner but who has never achieved Champions League glory, his Monaco counterpart Leonardo Jardim, criticised for fielding a B-team in a 5-0 French Cup semi-final thrashing by Paris St Germain last week, has a defensive worry with midfield dynamo Tiemoue Bakayoko doubtful due to a broken nose.
Monaco have shone in Europe and at home this season and their domestic title hopes received a welcome boost when a nervous PSG side lost 3-1 at Nice on Sunday, leaving the club from the French Riviera three points clear at the top with a game in hand.
Juventus, meanwhile, are closing in on a record sixth straight Serie A title and can turn to their European history for inspiration, having won the showcase club competition twice, in 1985 and 1996.
And with Juve having lost the 2015 final to Barcelona, star forward Paulo Dybala insists this is the year the club’s long-serving players deserve to lift the trophy in Cardiff.
“This could be our year — we’re doing very well in all the competitions we’re involved in,” Dybala told the Uefa website. “It won’t be easy because there are another three teams who, like us, want to win it, but we’re going to give our all.
“Winning the competition would be an objective fulfilled, because it’s one of my ambitions, as it is for my teammates.
“It would be a thoroughly deserved reward for many of the boys who have been here for a long time and done so much over the years, from Gianluigi Buffon to Claudio Marchisio, Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini.
“They haven’t been able to lift the trophy yet and I think they really deserve to.”
Monaco, by contrast, reached the Champions League final only once, in 2004, losing 3-0 to a Porto side coached by Jose Mourinho after a great run featuring wins over Real Madrid and Chelsea.
The sides have faced each other twice before on the Champions League stage with Juventus winning both ties, in the 1998 semi-finals and the 2015 quarters.
Juventus have never been eliminated by a French team in 11 previous meetings in European club competitions.
— Agencies
