Monaco’s Lukas Hradecky: ‘Tonight’s match shows that we don’t belong in the Champions League.’ | OneFootball

AS Monaco waved goodbye to their slender chances of qualifying for next season’s UEFA Champions League following a 1-0 loss to Lille OSC on Sunday night. It leaves the Principality club seventh going into the final day of the season. They will have to win and hope that Olympique de Marseille lose against Stade Rennais next weekend to have any hope of climbing into sixth. Otherwise, they will have to rely on RC Lens beating OGC Nice in the final of the Coupe de France in order to qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League. 

‘We don’t get the maximum out of this team’ – Monaco’s Hradecky

Any form of European football will now do for Monaco, who, according to Lukas Hradecky, didn’t deserve to return for a third successive UCL campaign. “Tonight’s match showed that we don’t belong in the Champions League. We can forget about it. Overall, individually, as a club, as a team, we have to do much better,” said Hradecky in a mixed zone interview attended by Get French Football News. 

He continued, “The sixth or seventh spot is not what I came to play for. At the end of the day, we are where we deserve to be, and next season has to be better […] we have to look at ourselves in the mirror. We have really good players, but as a team, we underperformed […] we don’t get the maximum out of this team, and maybe there are multiple reasons, but also today, there was not too much freshness. Lille were more controlled on the ball.”

GFFN | Luke Entwistle – reporting from Monaco