[Albion] Roberto De Zerbi - JOINS AS NEW HEAD COACH (4 year contract)

[jessiejames]

Uh yeah I guess it does seem strange for a small forum maybe, but lurking is still the one of the main (and best) rules of the internet, especially before starting to write in a community. I've been reading the forums for a while, a couple months at least, before deciding to make an account in case I wanted to comment on something. So yeah I've already read my fair share of "Swanny" arguments - I used the abbreviated form you guys use because it is faster than writing Swansman.

As for the reason I'm here, as I said before I like following the progress of some Italians in the PL from time to time, especially if they're doing well. I'm also aware of Gnonto's general trajectory at Leeds for example, but a coach has more power and influence than a single player in a league. I actually found a lot of other Italian people who are following what De Zerbi is doing (some of them hoping he'll come back to Italy to coach their club), and Italian sports media sometimes report on it too.

And I wouldn't consider my English perfect at all, I'm sure you'd find some errors if you really went looking for them in my posts. I've been slowly taught the language since I was 6 though (like any Italian of my generation), so I'd surely hope I'd be able to write some simple posts about football by now. Writing also gives me more time to compose sentences compared to speaking, which I'm not that good at.

I don't want to derail the conversation further though.

My best friend mum is from Foggia, shes been here 65 years and her English is still not very good so i would not worry too much.

 

[Sepulveda]

Thanks for translating, interesting!

Assuming that you are in fact, not Swansman, you speak fantastic English. I lived in Milan for a while and have known many Italians over the years including some who had been working professionally in London for decades. None spoke English as well or as nuanced as you seem to.

And even at the height of my abilities to speak Italian it was only ever a minute fraction as good.

So kudos for that! (This is where you turn around and tell me that you’re American but have an Italian grandad or something, so therefore are also purebred Italian…)

Also the diffusion of Juve fans across Italy always shocks me - very Man U-esque. I remember I was in a village in the Gargano one year when Juve won the title and you fuckers kept me up all night driving around town honking horns and chanting!

That's the thing, I'm not speaking - I'm writing. I can write well enough to be comprehensible but I'm not nearly as good when speaking. Also, Italian is more complex than English and I assume you haven't been learning it throughout your childhood and adolescence, so no wonder you're not as accustomed to it as I am to English. No, I'm not American, I was born and raised in Italy with an Italian family. Like many Italians, I think Americans should just accept that they're American and stop trying to escape from their own nationality.

Yeah Juve are the most successful club in Italy if we're talking about domestic titles, and they've more or less always been. Milan are the ones with most European trophies, but those don't hold quite the same weight in shaping national support over the years. Plus a lot of people from the South went to work in the "industrial triangle" of Turin-Milan-Genoa after WW2, especially in Turin where the FIAT factory was, so the support for Juve transferred to the FIAT workers and their families in the South if there wasn't a strong local team there. When I was reading about how good it is for you to be shaping your club's history right now and the necessity of not forgetting your small-club roots, I reflected upon the fact that we've never been a small club and that that has its cons as well as its pros. We've never experienced the rise but only the fall, or the fall-and-revenge at most. We have a lot more weight on our shoulders let's say, and it's not always a good thing.

An Italian using a Spanish name? It's Andreas Orlandi, isn't it?
Procrastination is the thief of time.

Well now I know who Andrea Orlandi is . When looking for a username for this forum one of the first things that came to mind was "Story of a seagull and of the cat that taught her to fly" by Sepulveda, which is extremely popular as a children's book here in Italy and has also spawned a very popular Italian animated film in '98. In fact, @Gabbiano 's profile picture is from that same film. And I'm a master procrastinator.

 

[Gabbiano]

That's the thing, I'm not speaking - I'm writing. I can write well enough to be comprehensible but I'm not nearly as good when speaking. Also, Italian is more complex than English and I assume you haven't been learning it throughout your childhood and adolescence, so no wonder you're not as accustomed to it as I am to English. No, I'm not American, I was born and raised in Italy with an Italian family. Like many Italians, I think Americans should just accept that they're American and stop trying to escape from their own nationality.

Yeah Juve are the most successful club in Italy if we're talking about domestic titles, and they've more or less always been. Milan are the ones with most European trophies, but those don't hold quite the same weight in shaping national support over the years. Plus a lot of people from the South went to work in the "industrial triangle" of Turin-Milan-Genoa after WW2, especially in Turin where the FIAT factory was, so the support for Juve transferred to the FIAT workers and their families in the South if there wasn't a strong local team there. When I was reading about how good it is for you to be shaping your club's history right now and the necessity of not forgetting your small-club roots, I reflected upon the fact that we've never been a small club and that that has its cons as well as its pros. We've never experienced the rise but only the fall, or the fall-and-revenge at most. We have a lot more weight on our shoulders let's say, and it's not always a good thing.


Well now I know who Andrea Orlandi is . When looking for a username for this forum one of the first things that came to mind was "Story of a seagull and of the cat that taught her to fly" by Sepulveda, which is extremely popular as a children's book here in Italy and has also spawned a very popular Italian animated film in '98. In fact, @Gabbiano 's profile picture is from that same film. And I'm a master procrastinator.

Speaking and writing still both have their difficulties - errors are much more obvious in writing. When I was referring to a colleague who had worked in London for decades, it was because we had to correct his writing before issuing reports - though he was an environmental engineer so English grammar rules were never high priority!

You’re right, I didn’t start learning Italian until I was at university, so it’s naturally more difficult at that age. Plus without much practice for years now it’s back down to a poor level. But it’s not easy to master English from Italy either, given that you’re less exposed to the language than most of Northern Europe. So you should give yourself credit!

Yes - la Gabbianella e il Gatto inspired my username and profile photo, introduced to it by my ex, and it was one of the books I used when learning Italian. Though now that the photos are circular it focuses on the cat not the seagull.

 

[Sepulveda]

You techie guys with your techie solutions, I'll solve this once and for all with one simple question:

Hey @Sepulveda do you like pizza?

Who doesn't? I think it's more or less the perfect dish, it can have anything you need from a complete meal

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

Who doesn't? I think it's more or less the perfect dish, it can have anything you need from a complete meal

Sorry, that was a joke about Swanny. He is famous for many things one of which is his addiction to pizza. So I was just being silly as usual. I mean if I really wanted to flush out a Swanny v2 I'd be asking you who you think is the better manager out of De Zerbi and Potter...

 

[rogersix]

It’s fine. No way it’s him. It’s his Internet friend from one of the other 2355 message boards he posts on 50 times a day each imo. But if I’m wrong, of course the Juve fan is welcome here and would never want to chase anyone off and nor would others

bit feverish sheebo

 

[Sepulveda]

Sorry, that was a joke about Swanny. He is famous for many things one of which is his addiction to pizza. So I was just being silly as usual. I mean if I really wanted to flush out a Swanny v2 I'd be asking you who you think is the better manager out of De Zerbi and Potter...

Oh I'd assumed being Swedish he'd have some terrible opinions regarding food, like for example disliking pizza.

Given that I know De Zerbi, am Italian and I barely know Potter at all, I think my preference for RDZ is probably among the highest on NSC lol

 

[Grassman]

My best friend mum is from Foggia, shes been here 65 years and her English is still not very good so i would not worry too much.

I bet none of you have the Foggia-ist what she’s saying.

 

[rogersix]

Sorry swanny but that Sepulveda guy does sound exactly like you. The syntax and style of writing is just too similar. Maybe Sepulveda can give us his/her rough location and the IP address can be checked Vs that rather than some random italian VPN.

christonabike........ you people NEED a hobby, it's fuckin embarassing now

 

[macbeth]

I don't want to derail the conversation further though.

yeah, this is definitely not swanny

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

Oh I'd assumed being Swedish he'd have some terrible opinions regarding food, like for example disliking pizza.

Given that I know De Zerbi, am Italian and I barely know Potter at all, I think my preference for RDZ is probably among the highest on NSC lol

The main part of the Swanny legend is that he was a fan of Potter (from his Scandi days), rather than of a particular team and so joined NSC after Potter moved to BHA and spent many years on here defending Potter throughout some very lean times. Incidentally, when he started Swanny was not a Brighton fan but for all his protestations he clearly is now, you have been warned!

Now some NSC stalwarts absolutely hated Potter with a vengeance because we didn't win at home much and then he hurt their feelings when he got sarcastic about a few boos after a particularly dreary game - imagine how livid they were when we started thrashing teams towards the end of his tenure and gained our highest ever league finish! Then when Potter left even those of us who thought he was great had to go through the stages of grief, including anger, during which De Zerbi turned up and made everything better (and then some). All this means that at the moment almost everyone loves De Zerbi more than Potter and almost everyone thinks he has us playing better football than Potter and almost everyone thinks this means De Zerbi is a better manager than Potter (including our players) so you may find some rivals for the crown of chief RDZ lover.

And the person who doesn't think De Zerbi is better than Potter is Swanny based on reasonable things like the differences in squads when they started at Brighton, length of time in position, it being impossible to scientifically compare two managers under completely different circumstances and so on. This intransigence really annoys lots of us because this is the best time ever in supporting the Albion and De Zerbi is clearly a genius (except we know really it is Bloom who is the genius) but we can't prove it to Swanny's satisfaction. Yet.

I'm telling this story mainly so you'll know when you see the bully boys gang up on Swanny from time to time it is just what they do, neither side seems to be able to let it go. You should feel welcome here and know that they are unlikely to pick on you too. That said, you will know you have done wrong when someone tells you that you don't understand and your opinion is worthless because you never watched us play home games at Gillingham.

Also you should know that what gets served up as "pizza" outside of Italy is not always what you would hope for. Indeed some of it could be considered some sort of racist insult

 

[Swansman]

Oh I'd assumed being Swedish he'd have some terrible opinions regarding food, like for example disliking pizza.

Given that I know De Zerbi, am Italian and I barely know Potter at all, I think my preference for RDZ is probably among the highest on NSC lol

We eat decent food in Sweden.

This lot, however..

 

[dwayne]

We eat decent food in Sweden.

This lot, however..

Our cuisine may be terrible but our restaurants are amongst some of the best in the world. Remind us how many times you've been to England swanny

 

[Sepulveda]

By the way, De Zerbi was interviewed on an Italian football program on the 30th of January, there's some bits of it that have become popular on youtube - this one in particular. I'll translate it for you:



[heavy Brescian accent activates]

"[talking about the differences in mentality between PL and Serie A players] Now I'll tell you an anecdote; we went to play with Manchester City, and I decided to go man-to-man in the defensive phase, and during the week I asked the captain if he was ok with going man-to-man with Haaland, and he started laughing and told me 'No problem, coach', and so I was thinking 'What would have happened in Italy if I'd asked someone to go man-to-man with Haaland?', because they're often less worried here in England, so they're mentally more free, and this is an advantage - and not a small one."

Trying to summarize what he said in another part of the same interview (I remind you it's from January the 30th):

• They asked him to confirm if he had more freedom in deciding market targets given that - compared to Italian ones - English clubs usually grant more freedom in that particular field to their managers, and RDZ replied (laughing) "Then it must be all clubs but mine, because mine are very tough on the market." From his tone I think he meant that you have a very tried-and-trusted working strategy on the market and don't allow a newcomer like him to have a say in it, which seems fair to me. He didn't seem particularly annoyed by it. And he did obviously add that the PL is much richer than Serie A, just looking at the winter window spending paints you the picture.
• They asked him if Zaniolo was ever a target for the club (I've no idea why) and he replied that he wasn't, and also that he thinks Zaniolo would be a bit out of range for your club economically-speaking.
• They asked him what he thinks Brighton is still missing in order to grow even more, especially this year when Liverpool and Chelsea are struggling. He replied that 1) he thinks you have a complete squad but you have many many youngsters and some new foreign arrivals among the substitutes, and yours is a very high-level league, so when a first-team player is injured you inevitably suffer a bit. Basically you do have players for every position but that depth in the squad is filled with youngsters who have very little experience and that's risky. And 2) he thinks the other thing you're missing is the awareness that you can go for it, that you can really beat any team on the day He hopes that that past month has made you aware once and for all that you have played against all the strong/top teams, and maybe you've lost but it was always hard-fought and you've always had the chance to win, against all of them. And so they can talk all they want about the market and the value of the team on paper but it's always the pitch that decides a season. And the pitch says that you can go for it, you can go for all your objectives (keeping in mind your current position in the table.)
• They asked him why he thinks the big clubs in Italy didn't try and hire him after his tenure at Sassuolo or Shakhtar and if he think it was fair, and he replied that he's always admired Ranieri because he went and coached abroad in different leagues, and it was his own decision to go to Ukraine despite having some offers in Italy. He has no interest in discussing past possibilities and he says there will surely be a moment in the future when the time is right and he'll come back to Italy. Seemed pretty pleased to make experiences abroad to me.
• The last segment of the video is just a lighthearted mocking of some low-grade Italian actor who's a Milan fan, given that Milan were just beaten by Sassuolo 2-5 at San Siro the day before (lmao)

There's also this written general summary of the whole interview where he also adds how if you go to coach in England you have to adapt to the different way of thinking and traditions of the PL, like not organizing team retreats in intense periods, considering the day off nearly sacred, players being a lot less tactically-minded and a lot more daring - e.g. a player just sprinting forward without worrying about whether the team has it covered or not behind him (and this ties in with his anecdote on Dunk and Haaland in my previous post.) He modified his training methods there in the PL, making them more playful and continuous and adding more video analysis sessions. He says he enjoys training your team a lot because it's a team of strong people. He thinks the reason why PL players are more daring is also that the weight of the result is different there compared to here. I don't know what he meant by that but I can infer that maybe in the PL there's more focus on the performance rather than the result(?).

 

[HCxUK]

Good interview with RDZ in Gazetta here...

Begins by speaking a bit about Ukraine, and how he had good offers from Italy after leaving Shakhtar but they didn't feel right. After studying the squad and a five hour meeting with the board he was sold on Brighton...

Says he appreciates the freedom to work 'as he wishes' and his relationship with English football was 'love at first sight.' Also speaks about building on the good work of the past coach.

Direct (translated) quotes when asked how he turned us into European contenders and the secrets to our success:

"I put in 3-4 new players: Estupinan hardly ever played, Colwill never played, Steele never played, Mitoma never played, Ferguson never played and Gross the full-back never played. These are big differences, because the ones who move are always the players".

"An important corporate organization, with serious people. The real secret is the hard core in the locker room: people like Dunk, for me he is one of the top 5 central defenders in Europe, Gross, Veltman, Welbeck, Webster, Lallana, March, Steele: Brighton don't have to be careful when I leave, but when this group of players quit or leave."

Says Europe via the PL is his main priority, and the FA Cup semi will be tough as Ten Hag has United playing well, but we have a chance and they need to be careful of us. Also says his mantra is 'to have fun with football.'

Finishes by saying he really likes Brighton as a city but doesn't spend much time here. He wants to improve his English as can't have relationships as he would like at the moment, then says something about Vasco Rossi in the ears...

 

[Hugo Rune]

"An important corporate organization, with serious people. The real secret is the hard core in the locker room: people like Dunk, for me he is one of the top 5 central defenders in Europe, Gross, Veltman, Welbeck, Webster, Lallana, March, Steele: Brighton don't have to be careful when I leave, but when this group of players quit or leave."

This is profound and so true.

Those 8 players allow us to include so many raw but promising youngsters in our match day squad.

We might have to pay some big money to replace them as I see a gap in time where they’ll all have retired but our kids won’t have the experience or statue to replace them (especially if we eventually sell players like Ferguson, Caicedo and Mac Allister).

 

[Swansman]

"I put in 3-4 new players: Estupinan hardly ever played, Colwill never played, Steele never played, Mitoma never played, Ferguson never played and Gross the full-back never played. These are big differences, because the ones who move are always the players".

 

[Sepulveda]

Good interview with RDZ in Gazetta here...

Begins by speaking a bit about Ukraine, and how he had good offers from Italy after leaving Shakhtar but they didn't feel right. After studying the squad and a five hour meeting with the board he was sold on Brighton...

Says he appreciates the freedom to work 'as he wishes' and his relationship with English football was 'love at first sight.' Also speaks about building on the good work of the past coach.

Direct (translated) quotes when asked how he turned us into European contenders and the secrets to our success:

"I put in 3-4 new players: Estupinan hardly ever played, Colwill never played, Steele never played, Mitoma never played, Ferguson never played and Gross the full-back never played. These are big differences, because the ones who move are always the players".

"An important corporate organization, with serious people. The real secret is the hard core in the locker room: people like Dunk, for me he is one of the top 5 central defenders in Europe, Gross, Veltman, Welbeck, Webster, Lallana, March, Steele: Brighton don't have to be careful when I leave, but when this group of players quit or leave."

Says Europe via the PL is his main priority, and the FA Cup semi will be tough as Ten Hag has United playing well, but we have a chance and they need to be careful of us. Also says his mantra is 'to have fun with football.'

Finishes by saying he really likes Brighton as a city but doesn't spend much time here. He wants to improve his English as can't have relationships as he would like at the moment, then says something about Vasco Rossi in the ears...

Ehilà, do you speak Italian as well?

If you want guys I can translate the full interview for you (it will take some minutes), but HCxUK's summary and excerpts are already really good so there's no real need other than to get all the minor details.

As for Vasco, RDZ says "I'm curious and want to explore the country but I lack the time to do it. So I just put Vasco Rossi in my ears [=listen to Vasco Rossi] and I keep going forward." Vasco is a rock/pop artist and from what I understand by searching online he's RDZ's favourite singer. He's one of those gruff half-drunk road-trip rocker types and (among 100 other songs) made a famous song titled "I'm going full-out" that is usually seen as a pump-up song to charge you up ("I'm curious to see what will happen / if I go full-out without braking".) It's not my jam but he's a popular singer in Italy.

Edit: If you want me to translate it say so, as I can't interpret silent likes haha

 

[GT49er]

"I put in 3-4 new players: Estupinan hardly ever played, Colwill never played, Steele never played, Mitoma never played, Ferguson never played and Gross the full-back never played. These are big differences, because the ones who move are always the players".

"An important corporate organization, with serious people. The real secret is the hard core in the locker room: people like Dunk, for me he is one of the top 5 central defenders in Europe, Gross, Veltman, Welbeck, Webster, Lallana, March, Steele: Brighton don't have to be careful when I leave, but when this group of players quit or leave."

Steele one of the secrets of our success? Sure, he's done well since coming in - but it does feel a bit as if Sanchez is being white-washed out. Not really happy about that - will be sad to see him leave in the summer to get game time elsewhere, if that's what he decides to do.

 

[Sepulveda]

it does feel a bit as if Sanchez is being white-washed out