milk
Member
- Jun 11, 2024
- 7
Are you our new Swanny?Fine for people from other clubs to chime in, we even allow Palace fans as we're nice. You're definitely fine as it appears you're not a supporter of a club we're in competition with. There are 93 pages on this thread, I don't bother to read the threads about who may/may not be joining us, until they've joined. 93 pages seems like it has a lot of traction, so would you be so kind as to give me info?
I so far know he's 31, I can't pronounce his surname & that he was born in the US. De Zerbi didn't speak English, does Fabian (notice I've avoided trying to spell his surname)? As far as I know, he ticks the major box for our managers because most of us in Brighton had never heard of him until a couple of weeks ago, & I know nothing else. Would you be so kind to summarise his style for me please as you're a St Pauli fan and have seen him. Will he run up the touchline when we score a goal or will it be a reserved celebration?
I’ll have to leave the technical details to others since I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination but in broad strokes:
Hürzeler has brought up de Zerbi more than once when asked about his role models in coaching and our style of play under him was commonly compared to Leverkusen, Stuttgart and Brighton in German football media.
Timo Schultz, his predecessor at St. Pauli, played a system that wasn’t all that different but Hürzeler managed to add an impressive defensive stability to it. When he took over we were just above the relegation line just for him to win his first ten games in a row and end the season just shy of promotion.
This season we picked up right were we left of and for a good stretch of it outright dominated the competition. Other managers are slowly adapting to this style of play (an experience you made this season too I think?) but what excited me the most watching our games was that not always but very often when a game didn’t go our way in the first half Hürzeler would make one or two small adjustments and it felt like it was a different team on the pitch. He seems insanely good at reading a game.
As for his character, he’s not a Klopp, you’re not gonna see any YouTube compilations of funny shit he said any time soon I’m fairly certain. He can come across as a bit reserved and awkward but at his age who is gonna blame him. As for his behaviour during games let's just say he got more yellows this season (7 iirc) than most of our players. Do with that info what you will but personally I mostly blame the refs
He is an incredible communicator internally though. We had so many players sing his praises because he knows exactly how to talk to different kinds of people to push them to their limits and beyond. He can improve veteran players just as well as he can integrate young talent.
Between his favoured style of play and him absolutely living and breathing football every minute of the day Brighton seems just about the perfect place for him. He would probably marry Starlizard if he could so it’s no surprise he wants this job badly.
Of course it’s frustrating to see him go because he was likely the smartest manager our club has ever seen but we knew the day would come rather sooner than later, we were all just hoping we’d at least get one year of Bundesliga with him.
There’s no way of telling how he’ll fare with you seeing how young he is and the PL certainly is a different beast than Bundesliga 2 but on paper I don’t think you could find a better match for your club and he definitely has the drive and ambition to make it work.
