Every year Brighton & Hove Albion loses its top performers. Nevertheless, the club is getting better and better. The secret of success is long-term planning.
Brighton & Hove Albion makes surprises normal. When the club from the south coast beat 4-0 in May last year Manchester United won, that may have caused astonishment among the English audience, but Brighton’s victory against the record champions last weekend – after 70 minutes it was 3-0, in the end it was 3-1 – almost had to be seen as a fulfillment of duty.
It was the fourth Premier League-Success one after the other for the “Seagulls” (Seagulls) against the club from the Old Trafford. Brighton winning against Manchester United has become a habit.
On the one hand, this is of course due to the worrying state of United itself, which has been in an endless cycle of crises on and off the pitch since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson ten years ago, but on the other hand, Brighton has also undergone a remarkable change since promotion to the Premier League in 2017.
The club with new international player Pascal Groß has established itself in the extended top group of the English elite class and is playing internationally this season for the first time in its 122-year history. The Europa League starts against AEK Athens on Thursday (September 21st, 2023). In the Premier League, Brighton is fifth in the table after five matchdays and is the team with the most goals.
Business model as a success factor
The amazing thing about Brighton’s success is the business model behind it. The idea is to give comparatively unknown players a chance and then sell them to rich competitors for large sums of money. Examples from the recent past include Ben White (to FC for 58.5 million euros arsenal), Yves Bissouma (for 29 million euros Tottenham Hotspur) and Marc Cucurella (for 65 million to FC Chelsea).
This summer the club lost two key players in midfield. Argentine world champion Alexis Mac Allister joined FC for 42 million euros Liverpool Moisés Caicedo earned the English record sum of 116 million euros when he moved to Chelsea. Brighton is the club with the biggest transfer increase over this and last season in an international comparison, followed by Ajax Amsterdam and Sporting from Lisbon.
However, the “Seagulls” don’t just trade with players. Last year, Chelsea poached coach Graham Potter and several of his employees as Thomas Tuchel’s successor. And it well illustrates the difference between the two clubs that Potter has long since been released, while Brighton is constantly improving under his successor Roberto De Zerbi.
Scouting for numbers and data
The not-so-secret (but still difficult to copy) secret of success is the far-sighted planning that makes Brighton probably the smartest club in Europe. Owner Tony Bloom is a gambling guru and has a numbers and data focused approach at the club Scouting established. Managing director Paul Barber already has one or more successors in mind for every key player and important employee. Or rather, like he did in the spring “New York Times” revealed: in a file on his Laptop.
When Brighton loses an important footballer for a lot of money, the replacement is often already in the squad, and it is usually a cheap replacement. England’s media happily calculated that Brighton’s starting eleven in the win against Manchester United only cost around 17 million pounds – a quarter of the amount that the record champions spent on the now disgraced Jadon Sancho alone.
Owner Bloom interprets the fact that Brighton’s staff is in demand for the company’s luxury brands as a compliment: “I’d rather have that than no one being interested in our players or staff. So we must be doing something right.”he just said “Athletic”.
Prepared for farewells
One can assume that Brighton will continue to supply the Premier League celebrities in the future. Current “Seagulls” professionals such as full-backs Pervis Estupiñán and Tariq Lamptey, left winger Kaoru Mitoma, recently involved in Japan’s 4-1 win against Germany, and the 18-year-old striker Evan Ferguson are already on the list at bigger clubs.
Coach Roberto De Zerbi is seen as a potential successor to Pep Guardiola if he eventually says goodbye Manchester City. It is of course difficult to estimate how resilient such mind games are. What is certain, however, is that Brighton will continue to be prepared for the departure of important employees in the future. The “Guardians” compared the club to the Hydra, the creature from Greek mythology that constantly grows new heads – because Brighton seems to get stronger with every departure.