Niko Kovac and AS Monaco, it’s over. A few hours after Laurent Batlles, another Ligue 1 technician took the door, which the club announced on Saturday January 1. The Croatian coach, who arrived in the summer of 2020 on the Monegasque bench, taking over from Robert Moreno, was sacked by the leaders of the Rocher club on Thursday, December 30.
The 50-year-old coach, including Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich across the Rhine, as well as the Croatian team, will only have convinced the club’s management for a season and a half.
Under the Kovac era, the Rocher club came out of its slump by finishing third in Ligue 1 during the 2020-2021 season. A place synonymous with a ticket for the third preliminary round of the Champions League, but the Monegasque course will stop in play-offs, after an elimination against Shakhtar Donetsk. The Croatian also brought ASM to the Coupe de France final.
He leaves ASM in 6th place in the league standings, four points from Marseille and the podium, but seventeen lengths from PSG. Cold with some executives in the locker room, Niko Kovac nevertheless remained on a disappointing 2021-2022 exercise for Monaco – already deprived of C1 – without being totally catastrophic, with a convincing Europa League campaign (leader and undefeated in his group), and a only defeat (against PSG 2-0) since that against Brest on October 31 (2-0), or 10 games without defeat out of the last eleven.
But Monaco, which has often suffered against its direct opponents, has never made it into the top 5 of Ligue 1 this season, and the Monegasque board has chosen to continue with another coach. In total, Kovac will have led Monaco in 74 meetings, including 57 in Ligue 1 (32 wins, 11 draws, 14 defeats). The Croatian coach was under contract with the Principality club until June 2023. This is the fourth departure of a coach in three years for the Principality club, after those of Leonardo Jardim, Thierry Henry and Robert Moreno.
According to various media, Monaco would have targeted three coaches to succeed him: the Belgian Philippe Clement (current coach of Club Bruges), the Portuguese Paulo Fonseca (former coach of AS Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk) and the American Jesse Marsch, who coached Salzburg and Leipzig, clubs belonging to the Red Bull company, for which the Monegasque sports director Paul Mitchell worked for a long time. While waiting for the officialization of the arrival of a new coach, it is Stéphane Nado, the coach of the N2, who ensures the training of the professional group.