Why Brighton hired De Zerbi: Guardiola’s influence and ‘Potterball’ evolution

Brighton’s new head coach Roberto De Zerbi appears to tick all the same boxes predecessor Graham Potter did across his 40 months in charge.

It made sense to the hierarchy that if you had a successful appointment in Potter — who bases his playing style on controlling possession, with an ability to improve players and teams — why not choose somebody like De Zerbi, with a similar track record and principles, to maintain your club’s upward trajectory?

Brighton owner-chairman Tony Bloom’s data-driven and proactive recruitment policy had identified the 43-year-old Italian as an outstanding candidate among potential successors for the day Potter left, owing primarily to his work over the past four seasons with Sassuolo in Serie AShakhtar Donetsk and Ukraine.

A series of character references built up a comprehensive profile of De Zerbi’s management style.

September 8, 2008 Potter’s exit to Chelsea was confirmed,Bloom and his executive team Their move.

Bloom, chief executive Paul Barber (with David Weir as technical director) and David Weir as chief executive were both amazed by De Zerbi’s knowledge about the evolution of Brighton’s play style under Potter. They also learned a lot about the players he would be able to use.

From that moment, they didn’t look beyond De Zerbi, who was a free agent after leaving Shakhtar in July following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was no cause to disturb other head coaches catching the eye with impressive work at their clubs, such as Kjetil Knutsen at Bodo/Glimt in Norway or Bo Svensson of Germany’s Mainz.

De Zerbi was quickly moved to Brighton (Photo by Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images).

Weitere meetings were held to finalize arrangements with De Zerbi and his representatives. Chelsea.

De Zerbi watched Brighton lose 2-1 to Potter’s Chelsea in a behind-closed-doors friendly at the Amex on Saturday — when both clubs were without a fixture owing to Premier League postponements — then flew back to ItalyBefore the confirmation of his appointment on Sunday evening on a 4-year contract, subjected to formalities for obtaining a work permit

Potter was once the head coach of the Premier League closest in philosophy, playing style and playing style to Pep guardiola. But now that’s De Zerbi — another great admirer of the Manchester City manager.

Brighton think they have landed an ideal, model-sustaining replacement for “Potterball”.

Prepare yourselves for ‘De Zerbismo’.

When Potter set out on his coaching journey 14 years ago with Leeds Carnegie in the Northern Counties East League, his ideas on the way the game should be played were shaped by watching Guardiola’s Barcelona side.

Mutual regard has developed from a distance since Potter joined Guardiola in the Premier League in 2019, but De Zerbi’s links with him are far greater.

They sat together at Manchester’s last month restaurant next to one another in a group that also included notable figures from Italian soccer.

Bivio #DeZerbi: accontentarsi di una ‘piccola’ o aspettare una big? Tra il no al #Bologna e la cena con #Guardiola… https://t.co/xmOr4fLUSe

— calciomercato.com (@cmdotcom) September 10, 2022

Andrea Maldera (second from the left), De Zerbi’s match analyst, is behind him. Andrea Maldera was previously a technical coach at AC Milan and Ukraine’s national team under Andriy Shevchenko.

At the head of the table is Manuel Estiarte, a long-serving member of Guardiola’s backroom team. To Estairte’s right is Marcello Quinto, who played under De Zerbi at Foggia in Italy and is expected to join his Brighton staff. Quinto worked with Alberto Aquilani last season with Fiorentina’s Under-19 Coppa Italia-winning team.

Enzo Maresca, formerly coach of Manchester City’s development squad, is there, too, having After his dismissal by Parma, he returned to the clubJuanma Lililo, assistant manager to Guardiola, will be replaced in Serie A

In front of Maresca is the former Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi, who was part of Roberto Mancini’s staff with the national team and a candidate at the time for the first-team coaching role at Palermo, the latest club to join the City Football Group stable. Aleksandar Kolarov (ex-Serbian international defender), is in front of De Rossi. He was a City player for seven years, including under Guardiola.

They were all there to observe Guardiola’s training.

Guardiola and De Zerbi were both active in Brescia during different periods. Brescia is the city where Guardiola was also born.

De Zerbi began his coaching career in 2013 with Darfo Boario, Serie D amateurs. He traveled to northern Italy to watch Guardiola train with Bayern Munich in pre-season training.

Guardiola shows respect by always being interested in coaches who have similar styles and are doing great work. He was an occasional spectator at the Mapei Stadium, when time permitted, to watch De Zerbi’s team during his three seasons in charge at Sassuolo.

Sometimes, the master can be taught by his disciple. De Zerbi’s tactic at Shakhtar of playing two full-backs very narrow, with a central midfielder in front of two central defenders, was replicated by Guardiola with mixed results at City at the start of last season and on the opening weekend of the current one in the 2-0 victory at West Ham.

But before Shakhtar, De Zerbi had made his breakthrough at a village club from northern Italy…

Until 10 years ago, Sassuolo was not in Serie A.

De Zerbi radically changed the way they play and their performance. He didn’t steer Sassuolo to European qualification, as Eusebio Di Francesco did in 2015-16, but he kept them punching above their weight with finishes of 11th and eighth (twice) in Serie A.

They missed out, on goal difference, to Roma last year for qualification to the inaugural Europa Conference League — and Roma, under new management with Jose Mourinho replacing Paulo Fonseca, went on to win the competition.

Sassuolo’s sustained progression under De Zerbi heightened his appeal to Bloom. Similar things were done at Brighton by Potter over the same period. He changed the play style and achieved finishes of 15th-16th, ninth, and 9th in the Premier League.

As the chart below demonstrates, De Zerbi’s Sassuolo are the only club in the “big five” European leagues since 2017-18 to have improved their possession game more drastically than Brighton did in Potter’s 2019-20 debut season.

De Zerbi is well-known for his ability to get teams to play out of the back, regardless of the opponent or the pressure, and then turn it against them.

One pattern of play at Sassuolo, recommended by De Zerbi’s goalkeeping coach Giorgio Bianchi, saw the full-backs go high and wide, with two central midfielders positioned on the edge of the penalty area.

This type of thinking outside the box is reminiscent to the tactical nuances that Potter introduced to Brighton.

De Zerbi’s style stems initially from a 15-year playing career as an attacking midfielder who enjoyed being on the ball for — among many other clubs in his homeland — AC Milan and Napoli.

This spirit sets him apart from the iconoclastic Italian coaches like Arrigo Sacchi. He led Milan to two European Cups, and the national team to 1994 World Cup final. They lost on penalties. Brazil.

De Zerbi likes to say he coaches with a No 10 on his back, remarking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica: “The good of the team is also the sum of all our personal ambitions. In this, I’m different from Sacchi.

“Sacchi only sees football in terms of the collective. I, on the other hand, am convinced that a team can be developed by getting the best out of individuals — as long as it doesn’t lead to the selfish and the egotistical.”

De Zerbi is guided by three core principles.

“I’m interested in individual skill and technique, without which you can’t keep the ball in your own half,” he says, “an understanding of the game, which comes down to concepts like the right posture with which to receive a pass and being able to pass to a team-mate’s preferred foot, and the courage to accept you may make a mistake.”

De Zerbi explains the advantages of controlling the ball using your sole foot in a viral video.

De Zerbi resisted the philosopher tag. “Don’t make me pass for a philosopher,” he has said. “Every coach has their own scale with which to make value judgements. The term philosopher is often used in football to denigrate players.

“It is true, though, that I like to play attacking football. The attacking phase is where I spend eighty percent of my week’s work. That’s why I use pre-emptive marking structures (his attacks are structured in such a way that the team are set up to defend the transition).

“If I limited the amount of work I do on the defensive phase to just 20 per cent, we would lose every game. But I don’t. When I train the attack, I pay close attention to our positioning so we aren’t unbalanced when the ball is lost. I have united both phases.”

De Zerbi has a lot in common with many Italian coaches. Tottenham’s Antonio Conte, calls himself a “hammer”, which refers to hammering concepts into players.

This is what he says about his playing career. De Zerbi made only three appearances in Serie A, but many claim he was a better player than that.

He says: “Maybe I was better than I showed but I got what I deserved and that was three games. I was a number 10 in an era of 4-4-2. I wanted to have some fun while pitching. I wouldn’t willingly change my position. If I wasn’t convinced by something, I didn’t easily adapt.

De Zerbi spoke about his experience as a player and how it shaped him as a coach. (Photo: Pierre Philippippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images).

“This has influenced who I am as a coach. Comparable to other coaches of my time, I will go above and beyond to accommodate my players’ skill sets and find the best position for them.

“But there’s a flipside. Given how much I bang my head against a wall trying to put them in their best positions, I am three times more demanding than the coaches who wouldn’t do that for me.”

De Zerbi’s football has been polarising in Italy. It poses a threat to the traditional order. He is a cult hero and has many supporters on the punditry circuit.

One is Daniele Adani. InterMilan and Brescia centre back, who was for a while the closest Sky Italia had Gary Neville. Adani believes De Zerbi’s football is the future, and that has started a culture war with JuventusMassimiliano Allegri, coach, discusses what makes good football.

Italian football is now divided into two camps, the “giochisti” and the “risultatisti” (performance-based versus results-based). Adani believes Allegri is a results-oriented coach whose end justifies the means. De Zerbi was considered part the new wave, which is more modern and in line with Europe’s trends. To some, he personified the rejection of Italian football’s traditions.

“I don’t see it like that,” De Zerbi says. “I love Italy. I feel 100% Italian. I was proud and happy.

“The question I ask myself is: do I like traditional Italian football? Do I prefer to play at the counter or do I want to be in control? No. It’s not what I stand for.”

When Italy won the European Championship last year playing a fluid, possession-based attacking style under Mancini, it validated De Zerbi’s way of thinking.

Potter is connected to De Zerbi because of their ability and experience to improve players. From a 24-year-old goalkeeper to a veteran goalkeeper, the squad Potter has left behind is full of players who thrived during his tenure in Brighton. Robert SanchezTo 31-year old midfielder Pascal Gross.

Hertha Berlin’s Kevin-Prince Boateng, who played under De Zerbi at Sassuolo in the first half of the 2018-19 season, raves about his methods. The 35-year-old midfielder puts him above other top coaches he’s worked under, including Jurgen Klopp at Borussia DortmundAllegri in Milan.

De Zerbi and Andrea Pirlo, May 2021 (Photo by Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images).

After working with De Zerbi, Boateng (Barcelona), Stefano Sensi(Inter) and Merih Demiral (“Juventus”) all made big moves.

These parallels are evident to Potter at Brighton. Ben White (Arsenal), Yves Bissouma(Tottenham Hotspur). Marc CucurellaAfter working under him, (Chelsea’s) children have all joined major clubs.

De Zerbi improved Sassuolo by selling top players, and also improving the performance of others. Sensi, signed from Cesena for £4million ($4.5m), went to Inter for nearly £25million. Manuel Locatelli, Domenico Berardi and Giacomo Raspadori were selected for Mancini’s victorious Euros squad.

Old traditions die hard, however. Detractors questioned De Zerbi’s record and what they regard as a disproportionately high profile.

De Zerbi lost a play-off final with Foggia against Pisa in the third tier, Palermo sacked him after just a few months following seven defeats in succession, and he couldn’t quite save Benevento from relegation. I wonder what he has ever won.

Others such as Sarri said it was Serie A’s loss and that he would miss him when De Zerbi left his homeland in May last year to take over from Luis Castro at Shakhtar.

“I wanted to test myself in a new environment,” De Zerbi told Italian newspaper Il Corriere dello Sport. “A multi-lingual dressing room, the Champions League, preparing for eight games in 25 days. It was necessary and I wanted a greater challenge.

“There are lots of ways to coach a football team and I’m aligned with the club’s objectives. You can either win leagues, make it to Europe or stay there. Here, I have to win and that’s it, testing out my ideas.”

Although his 14-month stay was limited by the Russian invasion, there was enough evidence from his 30 games that Brighton felt De Zerbi was the right candidate to continue the club’s ninth-place finish under Potter.

Shakhtar, who won the Ukrainian Super Cup against Dynamo Kyiv and defeated Genk to reach the group stage for the Champions League, was crowned champion of Ukraine. There were no champions.

Shakhtar sporting director Darijo Srna, speaking to Spanish media outlet AS about De Zerbi, said: “He was our first, second and third choice. He plays incredible football, his style is like tiki-taka and he’s got Brazilian players to do it.

“De Zerbi is at the level of Guardiola in his style and the ideas of the game.”

Italy was a tempting destination for De Zerbi again after Shakhtar but he declined Bologna when Sinisa Mihajlovic was sacked two weeks ago.

De Zerbi stated that he would have accepted the job if Mihajlovic (a friend who was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2019) had not resigned. Morally, it didn’t sit right with him to replace someone he felt deserved more time. Mihajlovic’s wife called De Zerbi a great man.

He is able to communicate in English and can hold one-on-one conversations. However, to begin media duties, he will need to be more careful.

Brighton was impressed with De Zerbi’s knowledge and style (Photo by Getty Images)

At Shakhtar, he didn’t use as much English as he would have liked, as there were different interpreters for a multi-lingual squad. That didn’t hold De Zerbi back and at Brighton, he can also lean on some members of his backroom team, whose English is more fluent.

De Zerbi is currently reorganizing his staff. Quinto and Maldera are expected to join.

At Sassuolo and Shakhtar, De Zerbi also had fitness coaches Vincenzo Teresa, Marcattilio Marcattilii and Agostino Tibaudi, plus method coach Michele Cavalli.

After Potter left Brighton for Chelsea, this expertise package is very much needed at Brighton.With Billy Reid (assistant), Bjorn Hberg and Bruno Saltor as coaches, Ben Roberts as goalkeeping coach and Kyle Macaulay as player recruitment analyst.

Unusual three-week break in fixtures resulting from the death Queen Elizabeth and the Postponement for the home gameAgainst Crystal PalaceBrighton also had the advantage of having plenty of time to research, due to clashing rail strikes.

Ambitious and still relatively young, Brighton believe they have the perfect answer to Potter’s sudden departure.

John Muller and Pol Ballus are additional contributors