The tourists who bustle round the casino in Monte Carlo admire the fleet of Ferraris, Porsches and other luxury cars parked in front of it with the wide-eyed, open-mouthed disbelief of a child whose wildest dream has just been fulfilled by Santa Claus.
Their reaction must be similar to that of Leonardo Jardim when he was asked to take over as AS Monaco's manager last summer. A squad boasting Radamel Falcao, James Rodriguez (who had just enjoyed a stunning World Cup) and Joao Moutinho, backed by the seemingly bottomless pockets of Russian billionaire owner Dmitry Rybolovlev, must have had the Portuguese salivating.
Yet when the Ligue 1 season kicked off, Rybolovlev's pockets had gotten significantly fuller with the 80 million euro sale of James to Real Madrid and Falcao offloaded to Manchester United on loan for a fee which has been reported between 6 and 20 million euros. Jardim had learned, if he hadn't already, that there is no Santa Claus.
"It has changed," Jardim told L'Equipe, referring to the club's "project" with an understatement befitting his matter-of-fact manner. He also added that "the team will be ambitious." It looked every bit the bold claim of a man who was trying to put a brave face on being told he would drive a Ferrari but was handed the keys to a Fiat. And yet 23 games into the league campaign, Jardim has been proven right.
Understandably, they did reel initially from the blow of losing their two biggest stars, bought just a year before for an estimated combined 105 million euros, and found themselves second-from-bottom of the table in early September. Yet Monaco have lost just three times in 28 competitive games since, and Sunday evening's goalless draw with league leaders Lyon was their 13th successive match in all competitions without defeat, 11 of which have ended in victory.
While the stats have been as spectacular as the bank balances of the principality's inhabitants, the performances (such as that against Lyon) have not.
The Monaco of Jardim's predecessor, Claudio Ranieri, had a degree of panache about them, a trait inherited from their debonair coach. Jardim's receipe has been markedly more pragmatic, though fans and press alike cannot say they were not warned.
"Tactically too the project has changed," the former Sporting and Olympiakos boss explained to reporters back in September. "This team cannot expose itself so much offensively. One of the virtues of a coach is to adapt to the club, to the moment, to situations. You have to adapt the team to its realities to do as well as possible, to be as ambitious as you can within the scope of its abilities."
Still in contention in four competitions -- including the Champions League, where they will make Arsenal's life singularly uncomfortable -- you could even say Jardim has exceeded expectations by quite some distance thanks to the unflinching organisation of his side.
Eric Abidal's reported unhappiness over Monaco's failure to keep their promise of a contract to Victor Valdes, a move that led to the ageing French defender leaving the club in the summer, has proven a barely veiled blessing. With Abidal's stature all but forcing a coach into naming him in the starting XI, Jardim has enjoyed a freer rein than he might have had if the former Barcelona star was still available.
Instead, Ricardo Carvalho has provided the experience and Tunisia international Aymen Abdennour, once courted by Barça himself, the versatile and ultra-dependable Andrea Raggi and even Brazilian prospect Wallace have slotted in alongside the Portuguese veteran with equal effectiveness.
Young full-backs Fabinho and Layvin Kurzawa have played their part at the back as well as going forward, while Danijel Subasic in goal has flourished; the Croatian international has not been beaten for 791 minutes in league action this season, the longest such streak in Europe.
The improved form of Moutinho has helped too, with the Portugal international radiant after an off-colour first campaign in France, while Jeremy Toulalan continues to be an effective force in mopping up and snuffing out in midfield despite having edged into his early 30s.
With a team-high six league goals, former Man Utd and Fulham striker Dimitar Berbatov has also contributed, not least in terms of giving the side the touch of lustre that only a household name can bring. But the Bulgarian, Toulalan and Carvalho, who turns 37 in May, are anachronisms, wrinkles on the fresh face that Rybolovlev and his right-hand man, Vadim Vasilyev, are trying to give the club.
If last summer appeared to mark a dramatic sea-change in strategy, a club insider, quoted by the Les Echos website in September, claimed that Rybolovlev, the world's 146th-richest man, had always counted on a solution based on youthful talent (though not necessarily homegrown) rather than a cash-fuelled quick fix for the then-debt-ridden club he purchased for one euro back in late 2011.
"At the start, his project wasn't to buy stars but to restructure the club to make it viable long-term," the unnamed source stated. "It's only once back in Ligue 1 that he indulged himself with buying players. He's a real supporter. At that time, he perhaps allowed his heart rule his head, and he realised the difficulties that brought."
The head, it seems, has ultimately won that battle. The threat of weighty Financial Fair Play punishments, like the 60 million euro fine handed out to Paris Saint-Germain ("It's out of the question he pay a fine for that," Vasilyev had told L'Equipe in September) caused a shift. So too did the 50 million euro settlement with the French Football League (LFP) to maintain the club's privileged tax status, as well as the reticence of sponsors to back a side whose glitz now falls some way short of its setting also convinced Rybolovlev to head down an alternative route.
He has still spent money though. Tiemoue Bakayoko, a promising 20-year-old French midfielder, was bought from Rennes for some nine million euros last summer, while nearly 16 million euros were given to Benfica to turn the loan move of Bernardo Silva, 20, into a permanent switch in January.
Those two added to Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco (21), Anthony Martial (19) and Kurzawa, 22 prove that Monaco, like Lyon, have clearly and firmly staked their club's future on youth. It looked a gamble, which is perhaps fitting for the sun-baked realm noted for its casinos, but it is one that is paying off.
"It takes more time, it's less glamorous, people will talk about it less in the papers, people are going to worry, they're not stars, but we have faith in it," Vasilyev had said in September, his words sounding less convincing then than they do now with Monaco fifth in Ligue 1 and safely in the Coupe de la Ligue semifinals and the last 16 of the Coupe de France.
"If we had continued on our original path, we would have put the club in danger. Once you have understand you have to change strategy, you change, there's no time to lose."