Brighton are very enjoyable to watch under new manager Fabian Hurzeler. Although he wouldn’t want me to label them because they are fluid, the 3-4-3 diamond formation they used in the second half against Tokyo Verdy suits the players they have perfectly.

Fabian Hurzeler speaking on Brighton & Hove Albion’s podcast:

I work a lot with principles because there are so many different situations in the game the players have to deal with, and principles help them to give them orientation. When there’s less space, when the opponents tag hard (mark players tightly), and when they don’t have a lot of time to think about the solution, that’s why I try to work with principles.

If you watch my game, it’s very fluid, so it’s not a fixed formation. Of course, in the media, they have to put a formation before (the match), and it’s mostly a 3-4-3. In the end, it’s very fluid, and the most important for me is that the players are positioned in areas where they can be the best version of themselves, and that’s, I think, the most important for me as a coach.

Around this time last year, I wrote about teams switching to a 3-4-3 diamond formation and outlined its benefits. A formation that was not commonly used by the bigger teams at the time. All of the teams I mentioned in the article attempted it at some point in the season, most at the start of the season, but once teams started generating more and more injuries, they had to abandon it.

You need the personnel in midfield on hand to make it work. Brighton had and have the personnel to make it work.

I agree that they are not fixed. No one has to move to a specific position based on where the ball is. That is what made them enjoyable to watch against Tokyo Verdy.

Under previous manager Roberto De Zerbi they had confidence in the system. Remove the player from the system and the preprogrammed plays, and those players look less than they did when they were playing in the system. Under Fabian Hurzeler, you can sense the players have greater confidence in themselves, which allows them to improvise.

There are counter movements in, towards the ball, to open space behind for passes from the center-back to the forwards or midfielders, central. A lot of emphasis is on the center-backs to find passes between the lines. The poise Jan Paul van Hecke had reminded me of Ricardo Calafiori. He should be the centerpiece of their team. Center-backs are given a license to roam from their position. The fullbacks can trail down the line or invert inside.

Fabian Hurzeler:

I think that we need to have a plan for both phases. We need to have a balance between a defense stability and of controlling the game. We conceded the less (amount of) goals in the last season but we were also top in ball possession.

[…] There’s a message you always say, ‘defense wins Championship,’ I think there’s truth inside the sentence and that’s why I like to to work hard against the ball. I like to defend to score goals, not to defend my own goal, to defend to score goals and that’s it’s main part of my style of play. […]

Despite the fact that Italians are normally stereotypically defensive-minded, De Zerbi was not defensive-minded. Fabian Hurzeler seems to be more mindful of the defense. After the Tokyo Verdy match, he spent almost the entire post-match press conference talking about how they should have kept a clean sheet and how it annoyed him.

That mentality ‘to defend to score goals, not to defend my own goal,’ is exciting. Take the game to the opponent. He is mindful of the defense but is always thinking about the attack.

Match: Tokyo Verdy 2-4 Brighton, 28 July 2024