“Above all, AS Monaco made me into a footballer, because a football player isn’t just a football player, it isn’t just about scoring goals, it is above all about being a man,” said Kylian Mbappé, one of the most renowned graduates of the Principality club’s renowned academy.
The France captain is one of 149 players to have graduated from La Diagonale to play for the first team; 19 have gone on to play for Les Bleus. On Sunday, one of the most prestigious institutions in French football celebrated its 50th anniversary.
There were more than 200 involved in those celebrations, including the legendary Jean-Luc Ettori, as well as Bruno Bellone, Gael Givet, Sébastien Squillaci… even current OGC Nice manager Claude Puel put his current allegiance aside for the occasion. There were six graduates on the teamsheet, too, including Maghnes Akliouche, the most recent player to make the step from academy to first team to the national team.
There were plenty of legends from La Diagonale who were absent, too, including the second-most capped player in France’s history, Lilian Thuram, as well as Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet, and Emmanuel Petit, who, like Mbappé, came through at Monaco and went on to become World Champions with the France national team.
It is La Diagonale that set them all on that path. “La Diagonale prepared me to speak multiple languages easily and allowed me to get my degrees. They were hard with me when they had to be, showed me love when I needed that, too, and I think that they perfectly continued the education that my parents started,” said Mbappé. The staff at Monaco’s academy building, which sits in the shadows of the iconic arches of the Stade Louis II, talk about “creating men” as much as they do creating world-class footballing talents; never one without the other.
That is part of the success of one of the most renowned academies in French football. There are other reasons. Les Monégasques’ catchment area is small, due to the Italian border to the East and Nice just 20km to the West. It is the latter who sweep up much of the local talent. But it has forced Monaco to cast a wider net, much to their benefit. “There is no local pool of young players,” one of their greatest managers, Arsene Wenger, once said. “Monaco isn’t a club that recruits from far away, just a club that recruits well,” Academy director Sébastien Muet adds, bringing a degree of nuance. Some of the best, however, notably Mbappé, from the Ile-de-France region, have come from further afield.
There is also the attractiveness of the Monaco project, not only because of the calm, albeit testing environment into which they are integrated, but also because of the opportunities. As the current manager of the Principality club’s Groupé Elite (academy side), Djimi Traoré, says, developing young players is “in Monaco’s DNA“. And the reason that they develop is because they are given game time.
“Today, we have a clear process to allow the academy players to have exposure to the first team. This is how you create the path,” says CEO Thiago Scuro. This season, Akliouche has been a key player, whilst the likes of Aladji Bamba, Mamadou Coulibaly, and Pape Cabral have also been handed minutes.
For 5️⃣0️⃣ years, AS Monaco Academy has been training generations that are making history ✨
— AS Monaco EN 🇲🇨 (@AS_Monaco_EN) April 19, 2026
And as Scuro said back in 2024, they are looking to further lean into their academy-centric strategy. “The desire is, through the process […] to reach a point where we have 50% of the squad coming from the academy. We know that this is a big challenge and a long-term process,” said the Brazilian.
The France national team would certainly be grateful if such an objective were met. Their current captain, Mbappé, puts his trajectory down to his formative years. “I think that sparked something that I am sure would never have been the same if I hadn’t come through at Monaco, regardless of the talent. I maybe would have succeeded, maybe a bit later, maybe differently, but surely not like I did,” said the Real Madrid forward. Mbappé is one of the bijoux of an academy that has constantly delivered for 50 years and there is no reason why it won’t continue to do the same for the next 50.
