The adventure stops there for AS Monaco, and we cannot say that there was no room. Beaten 1-0 to go to Louis-II by Benfica, in a match distorted by the very severe red card inflicted on Al-Musrati, the Principality club delivered a crazy match on the return to Lisbon, but that was not enough. Plurged by its defense, ASM failed to prevail (3-3).
We were worried about the Monegasque, decimated midfielder, which led Adi Hütter to innovate with a 5-3-2 where Maghnes Akliouche and Eliesse Ben Seghir supported Lamine Camara in the midfield. It was ultimately the defense that cracked, from start to finish, first with a double error by Wilfried Singo which led to the opening of the Kerem Akturkoglu (1-0, 22nd) score.
Too bad because the attack on ASM, which had spent seven goals at FC Nantes on Saturday, was still in a good evening. After a head of Breel Embolo on the post (32nd), Takumi Minamino opened the scoring by deceiving the Portuguese goalkeeper at the first post (1-1, 33rd). And after a superb work by Akliouche, still amazing on this match, Embolo missed a huge 2-1 ball (45th+4).
Too many limits for Monaco
The goal ended up arriving at the return of the locker room, with Akliouche again at the start, and embolo which intelligently lets the ball pass for the precise strike from Ben Seghir (1-2, 51st). Monaco believed in it strongly, all the more, the serial and driver Mika Biereth entered. But a new failed defensive sequence, in this case an unwelcome tackle of Thilo Kehrer on Aursnes, offered Pavlidis a penalty (2-2, 76th).
The rest? Still the same scenario. George Ilenikhena who scores a nice goal from his first ball, and puts Monaco back to height (2-3, 81st). But the defense still cracks in stride, letting Kokçu cut a center and deceive Majecki (3-3, 84th). It's annoying, but not illogical, when talent is also accompanied by obvious limits. In the Champions League, at these altitudes, it could hardly pass. And it is Benfica who therefore goes to the knockout stages to face Liverpool or Barcelona.
