A small city on the southern shores of England harbors one of football’s best kept secrets. If you haven’t been paying attention to Brighton FC, you need to take notice now. And while this is the insane story of how an unlikely series of events on the global stage led to the age of De Zerbi… that’s not even the craziest thing you’ll learn today.
Brighton
There was a time, as they progressed up through divisions having been in the fourth tier of English football as recently as 2001, when Brighton and Hove Albion aspired to emulate Leicester City or Southampton.
They were their role models — clubs admired in the Premier League for punching above their weight, narrowing the financial chasm between themselves and the big-spending elite and praised for their coherent structure, smart management and shrewd player recruitment.
Now the sense is that Brighton have overtaken Leicester, Southampton and many others to become the model club of the moment.
But to learn how special Brighton have been over the last decade, we need to understand where they have come from. In the late 1990s Brighton was on the brink of liquidation and almost left the top 4 divisions of the football pyramid.
Only saved by a last minute boardroom takeover that kept the club alive, they had to sell the grounds they played on and spent the next two seasons 70 miles away in Gillingham. A few years later in 2001 and 2002 Brighton secured back-to-back promotions into the EFL Championship. At this point in their history, they weren’t even playing in a permanent home ground!
The most important development for Brighton happened in 2009, when current owner Tony Bloom secured a controlling stake in the club through an investment of a permanent home pitch Falmer Stadium - what you all know as The Amex.
In 2011 Brighton hosted their first match ever at The Amex and after three consecutive seasons, they reached the promotion playoff where they lost each time. That takes us to 2014, where an important development was beginning 600 miles to the south.
De Zerbi
A relatively unknown italian midfielder Roberto De Zerbi retired from a playing career to manage his first club Darfo Boario in Serie D, the fourth division of Italian soccer.
De Zerbi would only stay there for a season, but in that time would take trips to the Dolomites in the North of Italy to watch Pep Guardiola train his Bayern Munich squad. Pep and De Zerbi shared a host of opinions, including a possession-based attacking style that used fullbacks as extra midfielders.
Foundationally that is the basis of De Zerbi’s tactical approach, but it was at his next club where he learned one of the most valuable lessons in the modern game. A secret approach to creating transitional moments that has yet to be discovered by the world’s best managers.
Sometimes fate brings together two people at the right time that changes the course of history. From 2014-2016 De Zerbi managed a small club Calcio Foggia in Serie C. Antonio Vacca would never amount to much in his playing career, but he would teach De Zerbi a hidden tactic that he would use to devastating effect at every club from that point forward, including Brighton.
You see, during matches Antonio Vacca would do a very peculiar thing with his foot. He would stand with his studs on the ball. That’s it - that’s the secret. But how can something so small and simple make a tangible difference in soccer’s tactical evolution? To understand that, we need to understand transitional play, especially as it pertains to Brighton’s ethos.
Russia
While Brighton was pushing into the Premier League, and De Zerbi was learning a secret no other coach implements still to this day, Russia was in the process of annexing Crimea, a territory of Ukraine. Following the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, which ousted the Ukrainian president and established a new democratic government, Russia took advantage of the internal turmoil to capture key strategic sites in Crimea and installed a pro-Russian government.
Because of this move, Russia was suspended from international governing bodies and had various sanctions introduced. The United Nations adopted a resolution affirming the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and referred to the Russian action as a “temporary occupation”.
Potter-ball
Meanwhile, in 2017 back at Brighton, the club finally finished in the top two places of the English Championship to earn promotion to the Premier League.
After narrowly surviving relegation in their first season by only one point, manager Chris Hughton was let go in favor of an English manager on the rise - Swansea’s Graham Potter. Graham Potter, and for that matter Brighton had committed themselves to a brand of football based around transition moments.
Some teams like to have possession and build their attacking chances by bringing the ball up the field until they find an opportunity in the box. The counter to this is to sit back in a low block, clog up the space and spring forward while your opponent is disorganized. Possession based teams may have more chances but less dangerous ones. Defensive teams may have fewer chances but higher quality shots. Graham Potter, and now Roberto De Zerbi are masters of getting the best of both worlds. But how do you do that?
From 2018 to 2022 Potter and De Zerbi were perfecting this incredible evolution of tactics. By using possession in your own half to invite pressure and “bait” your opponent into disorganizing themselves, you can open up spaces between the lines and behind the defense for your attacking players to run into.
Utilizing “budget” players in a revolutionary tactical setup allowed Brighton to reach as high as a 9th place finish, and using a very similar setup, De Zerbi’s Sassuolo in Serie A matched Roma’s point total but missed European qualification on goal difference. If there was ever a match made in the soccer heavens, it was Brighton to Sassuolo, and Potter to De Zerbi.
Don’t worry - I haven’t forgotten about the studs question. Be patient, we’re getting there.
By the start of the 2021/22 season Graham Potter and Eddie Howe had become the two English coaching prodigies at the forefront of every hiring search. De Zerbi was a hot commodity himself, joining Shakhtar Donetsk, a Ukrainian club that regularly competes in the UEFA Champions League.
As Potter was finishing up his most successful season and what would be his last full one at Brighton, De Zerbi had won 66% of his matches with Shakhtar including Champions League.
The Invasion of Ukraine
On the morning of February 24, 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine. Minutes later, Russia began a full-scale ground invasion on the Northern front towards Kyiv, the Northeastern front towards Kharkiv, and a Southeastern front towards Donetsk. Yes, the same Donetsk where Roberto De Zerbi was building a domestic giant.
Because of the invasion and the subsequent suspension of the Ukrainian football league, De Zerbi left the club as a free agent.
It seems the fates had decided more than a few outcomes for the future of the Italian manager.
As fallout from the Russian invasion continued to ripple across all peoples and places, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich was forced by the UK government to sell Chelsea FC to an American investor group led by Todd Boehly. At the same time, the club was failing many of their results-based goals, falling outside of the European places in the table. Less than a season after winning the Champions League, Thomas Tuchel was fired from Chelsea, replaced by our good friend from Brighton… Graham Potter.
Dominos that fell in 2014 now began to show their awe-inspiring beauty. Brighton’s Championship challenge, De Zerbi’s introduction to management, and the annexation of Crimea traced themselves to the actions of today.
De Zerbi was a natural successor to Potter at Brighton, and we now have the opportunity to see the genius of the secret he learned from a now unemployed defender.
Why does De Zerbi make his defenders stand with their studs on the ball?
While training his Calcio Foggia squad in Serie C, De Zerbi noticed one of his defenders Antonio Zucca would stand with the ball in such a way that was different from every other professional player in the world. When De Zerbi asked why he kept trapping the ball with his studs, Zucca responded that he noticed when he controlled the ball in such a way, opponents seemed overly aggressive and opened up additional space to be exploited for the midfielders.
De Zerbi was stunned. Could it really be that simple? That was in 2014! In the third division of Italy!
And now… Brighton defenders are doing it every time they want to invite additional pressure from opponents. They’ve opened up additional space in the midfield to exploit while keeping their defensive shape. In his short time with the club, De Zerbi has brought Brighton to the brink of the European spots on the table with marquee wins against Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal.
How high can Brighton go? I expect they’ll continue to surprise us until everyone knows the name of Roberto De Zerbi and Brighton FC.
Well, now that you've spilled the beans on their secret tactic, I guess we can expect to see Brighton tumble back down to reality. 😄
Absolutely love how you showcased this butterfly effect! Great read.
Also loving what Brighton are doing at the moment.