Monaco's Grand Casino: House Always Wins, Except on Thursday

The ball rolled across the Monaco turf like a coin across green baize, always to the home side, always in search of a pocket that never opened. Sixty-five per cent of it belonged to AS Monaco; the scoreboard belonged to FK Čukarički Beograd.

The decisive moment came from the one clear chance the visitors carved. Branko Miljanović, twenty years old and starting at left-back, had spent his evening running — 13.1 kilometres of it — and when the opening appeared he supplied the pass that settled the night. One-nil, and the 38,325 inside the AS Monaco Stadium could only watch the Serbians hold what they had.

Monaco had their chances in quantity: fourteen shots, eight corners, a ball against the woodwork. Three on target, though, tells its own story of a side that pushed and pushed without ever quite knocking. Javier Jiménez, deputising for the injured Merouane Mokrani on the right, offered two key passes before his withdrawal; Gruff French, the summer loan from Chelsea, kept the ball with the calm of a man who has seen this film before. Behind them, a patched defence: Nathan Ortiz, seventeen, at left-back, and Yoann Berger, sixteen, in central midfield. The absences — Fall, Zoilo, Toibibou, Stuer — are the sort of thing a coach cannot legislate for, and the partnership of Fall and Zoilo was exactly what this evening lacked.

Čukarički defended the way monasteries were built: patiently, stubbornly, for the long centuries. Dragan Stefanović won five tackles and covered the same ground as Miljanović; Ivan Radovanović, on at the interval, shored up the centre. Radojica Antić collected a booking after a minute and then played the remaining eighty-nine as if it had never happened.

Monaco will point to the woodwork and the expected goals. Čukarički will point to the scoreboard. In football, as in philosophy, the elegant argument does not always win the day — and the beautiful loser must learn to live with it.