PSG's Champions League woes highlight Monaco achievements - Jardim

Monaco's run to the last four of the Champions League in 2017 looks better as Paris Saint-Germain struggle, according to Leonardo Jardim.

Published : Mar 07, 2018 20:01 IST

Leonardo Jardim thinks Paris Saint-Germain's Champions League failures put Monaco's achievements in the competition in perspective.

PSG were beaten 5-2 on aggregate by Real Madrid in the last 16, having fallen at the same stage last year as Barcelona overturned a 4-0 first-leg deficit to dramatically progress 6-5.

Monaco were knocked out in the group stage this season, but reached the semi-finals last term and the quarter-finals two years earlier, with Jardim highlighting his side's accomplishments as PSG and Unai Emery come under pressure.

"This shows once again that it is very difficult to go to the quarter-finals, the semi-finals of the Champions League," the Monaco coach told a pre-match news conference ahead of their Ligue 1 clash with Strasbourg on Friday.

"It is a way to further enhance the [achievements of the] Monaco project because we did it twice in three seasons."

Radamel Falcao is back in training after over a month out, but 16-year-old January signing Pietro Pellegri will miss around six weeks following a hernia operation.

"[Pellegri] had surgery because he has a hernia," Jardim said. "We made the decision that it was better to settle this now so that he can come back early next season.

"He is a young player who started very early. When they are young, people ask a lot of these players, [treat them] like adults.

"He arrived from another club and the problem was already there. We tried to solve the problem because, with that, he did not train well."

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