The whole of France is behind AS Monaco

In the French league AS Monaco are not exactly what you would call a well-supported team. Often, only a few thousand fans find their way to the attractive Stade Louis II. Yet all this has changed since the club reached the final of the UEFA Champions League. A veritable wave of sympathy has swept over the Monegasques from the 'Grande Nation'.

"The whole of France is getting behind Monaco. We saw a similar phenomenon with St. Etienne in 1976 - but we've never had anything like it in Monaco before", explained Raymond Gnutti, president of the AS Monaco supporters club. Its registered members, all 550 of them, have hired five coaches for the journey to the Ruhr - a supporters club record.

Rather more impressive is the fact that, against all expectations, all 14,000 tickets allocated to the club have been sold. If we consider that the principality has no more than 35,000 inhabitants, it becomes clear that not only fans from Monaco will be making the trip to Gelsenkirchen. Some 25 charter planes are being organised to take supporters and sponsors to Cologne and Düsseldorf. In Europe Didier Deschamps' team have never been supported by this many travelling fans before.

Just a few years ago only the bravest of experts would have considered it possible for AS Monaco to reach a European final. The team was on the brink of being banished to the second division because of excessive debts, and it was left to Prince Albert to persuade a few 'friends' to invest in the club.

This in turn sparked an envious reaction elsewhere. Club presidents in Marseille, Lyon and Paris, for example, even questioned Monaco's entitlement to play in the French league. In view of the tax benefits available in the principality Monaco already enjoyed a massively unfair advantage, they claimed. The French league earnestly requested an additional place for France should Monaco qualify for a European competition. The dispute has since been laid to rest, however, and now the whole of France is hoping that Monaco will lift European football's most prestigious trophy - not least because Olympique Marseille were beaten by Valencia in last week's UEFA Cup final.