MONACO ? Looking back, Vadim Vasilyev can pinpoint the precise moment A.S. Monaco changed. Vasilyev, the club?s vice president, can name a place ? the Grimaldi Forum, a grand conference center on the Monte Carlo seafront ? and a date: Sept. 21, 2015.
That evening, around 1,000 of Monaco?s most ardent fans packed into a hall to hear what Vasilyev ? accompanied by Leonardo Jardim, the club?s coach, and J?r?my Toulalan, its captain then ? had to say for himself.
Over the previous two summers, those fans had watched as one of the most ambitious projects in European soccer seemed to crumble. Monaco had spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring some of soccer?s brightest stars; now they were all being allowed to leave.
