PSG are probably playing their most complicated Ligue 1 match of the season this Wednesday evening on the Monaco pitch. Historically hostile terrain for the Parisians, a victory would propel them into an ideal position to seek a new French champion title at the end of the season. However, is a victory necessarily mandatory to be crowned next May? Here’s what the history of past seasons says.
Monaco/PSG is one of the historic posters for the French championship, often a duel for the title and this 2024/2025 version seems to be totally part of this movement. ASM has been struggling in recent weeks but has long been PSG’s main candidate and is third behind OM only on goal difference. Monaco/PSG therefore has everything of a shock for the title, as often, but the Stade Louis-II is also the most unpopular in the championship: Paris has only won nine times there, for 28 defeats and 16 draws.
Knowing that PSG has been champion of France twelve times, including once when Monaco was in Ligue 2 (2012/2023), it is therefore not necessary for Paris to win in the Principality to be champion. On the other hand, it is a constant: the best Parisian teams, those who went for the title at the end of the season or had historic seasons, have practically never lost in Monaco. PSG in 2003/2004, probably the best Parisian team not to have been crowned, did not lose there (1-1).
From the first titles, in 1985/1986 and 1993/1994, the cursed lawn of Louis-II (22 years without a victory between 1984 and 2006) was not that much with two draws on the same score (1 -1). Rebelote in 2014 (1-1) and 2015 (0-0) for the first two QSI titles with ASM in Ligue 1. But a sign that PSG gained strength during the first years under the QSI era, the Parisian team even won resoundingly in Monaco in 2015/2016 with a 3-0 success and the first minutes of a certain Angel Di Maria, starting as a passer decisive.
Monaco, a marker of team quality
The Louis-II stadium then became a particularly effective marker of the quality of Parisian teams. In the two recent seasons in which PSG was not champion at the end, Paris also lost in Monaco. In August 2016, ASM, which was then far from suspecting that a historic season was going to take place, brought down a very insufficient PSG (1-3). As for the 2020/2021 season concluded with the coronation of Galtier’s LOSC, it saw Paris sign a farcical match in Monaco: PSG led 2-0 after 37 minutes and finally lost 3-2…
The fact remains that PSG was particularly successful on the Côte d’Azur at one time, signing three consecutive successes in 2017/2018 (2-1), 2018/2019 (4-0) and 2019/2020 (4-1), three seasons where the Parisian squad is qualitatively built around the Neymar / Mbappé duo until it reaches its full potential in 2019/2020 with this Champions League final. Monaco was also doing less well at that time, with Paris regularly traveling to face a team in crisis. But ASM has not particularly recovered since then and has nevertheless had three successes in 2020/2021 (3-2), 2021/2022 (3-0) and 2022/2023 (3-1).
The ridiculous PSG at Louis-II with Pochettino and Galtier, better under Luis Enrique
During these last two seasons, PSG was even champion of France at the end, respectively with Pochettino and Galtier. However, the matches offered by the Parisian team were regularly dismal from a collective point of view, Paris coming out of it through the exceptional quality of its individuals more than through any collective. But these Monaco/PSG having been played at weak moments of the Parisian season, the Monegasque team did not hesitate to trample these mediocre teams.
The 2023/2024 season with Luis Enrique at the head of the club, on the other hand, marks a real turning point, which can be compared to that of the mid-2010s. The team is one again and, although the match was just before a Champions League round of 16 second leg which was much more on people’s minds, they came for a rather logical draw (0-0) in the Principality, with everyone having their own half.
As the more or less recent past indicates, it is therefore not necessarily necessary to win in Monaco to be champion at the end of the season. However, it seems quite clear that all the best PSG teams in recent years have achieved this performance and that it would therefore give a real idea of the quality of the 2024-2025 vintage of the Rouge et Bleu
