Thiago Scuro: "A fierce desire to return to the Champions League"
Like coach Adi Hütter, he said he was proud of the character shown by the Rouge et Blanc. Dominant against a Lisbon side that was pushed around in front of its home crowd, the latter gave their all before seeing their hopes of qualification fly away in a draw at the Estádio da Luz (3-3). It was a performance that nevertheless leaves reasons for hope, as Thiago Scuro recalled after the match. 🎙️
Good evening Thiago. What is your feeling tonight?
I think we have to look at the bigger picture. Tonight we showed some great things, a lot of quality despite the absence of several players. This young team also showed that they believe in their coach, in the way we play football and in our progression.
Unfortunately, the facts of the match were not in our favour. We also made mistakes, that is part of the game. But clearly we lost the qualification in Monaco, not here in Lisbon. On the contrary, we showed that AS Monaco was strong and that the Club deserved its place here.
Les mots du Coach après la rencontre face à @SLBenfica 🎙️
3️⃣-3️⃣ #SLBASM pic.twitter.com/oGIAjcWbq5
— AS Monaco 🇲🇨 (@AS_Monaco) February 18, 2025
Is this a kind of failure in your eyes?
It is definitely one when you are a club like AS Monaco, with the quality that we have and knowing that we faced a Benfica team that was not better than us. We are eliminated, so it is a kind of failure, yes.
Now we must learn from this disappointment and come back even stronger in the league, because we have a fierce desire to return to the Champions League next season. This starts with a very important match this weekend away against a direct competitor, Lille. We must show that we are coming back even stronger.
Didn’t individual errors prevent you from going further?
There were offensive and defensive errors, that’s football, it’s made of multiple errors. No team makes any mistakes, otherwise there would only be scoreless draws. I don’t see things like that. There were errors, it’s part of the game. I repeat, we are proud of what we showed tonight, of the face shown by our players, who proved what AS Monaco is. And we will continue to progress.
BEN SEGHIR DONNE LES COMMANDES À MONACO ☄️
À souligner une super feinte d'Embolo après un très bon travail de l'excellent Maghnes Akliouche 💫#SLBASM | #UCL pic.twitter.com/tHHUl5jHX1
— CANAL+ Foot (@CanalplusFoot) February 18, 2025
Are you still lacking experience?
This is a discussion we had during the winter transfer window. But I think tonight we saw that there was a good balance between experienced players and young talents. We have suffered from absences at times this season and let’s hope that it will be different next year.
But the season is not over, the time has not come to focus on this point but rather to recover well, and work to recover those who were not available tonight, to have a stronger squad in the final sprint.
Are you still aiming for the podium in Ligue 1?
Of course, our objective has not changed since the start of the season. We want to finish among the top three in the standings and write the same story as last season. We are still in the running in the standings to qualify directly for the Champions League and have confrontations with our direct opponents. We will therefore work hard to achieve this objective of the Top 3 and return to this competition next season.
