At Brighton, Life Is Still Like A Video Game

For several years now, Brighton and Hove Albion has possessed the Mandate of Video Game Heaven. This is a title soccer's (nerdy?) gods bestow upon clubs, usually modest ones, who most closely adhere to the precepts of team-building and play that generations of gamer-prophets, through countless hours of solitary, ascetic communion with games like FIFA and Football Manager, have discovered as the one true way. This path involves scouring the world (or consulting one of those online player databases and sorting by highest potential) for the most promising young, undeveloped, undervalued talents, signing them, cultivating their gifts in an adventurous tactical setup, rising up the table and divisions, selling some of those talents once their explosions inevitably catch the eyes of the big clubs, reinvesting that money into more and even brighter prospects, and continuing the cycle until your club has become one of those big clubs.

Though it's admittedly much easier to pull off this strategy in the digital world, the rewards for those who successfully implement a version of it in real life are substantial. Brighton is a great example of the favor this Mandate of Video Game Heaven can grant. Since Tony Bloom became majority owner in 2009, the Seagulls have risen from being a small-time, third-tier outfit to now being not only Premier League mainstays, but one of the most fascinating and exciting clubs in Europe. They've done so by bringing in innovative managers, signing lots of players whom their scouts believed have more to give than they've previously shown, getting the best out of those talents, selling well and then reinvesting even better, and generally behaving exactly like a savvy gamer would had one taken over Brighton in FM10. The pinnacle came in the 2022-23 season, when manager Roberto De Zerbi led a group featuring the likes of Alexis Mac Allister, Moisés Caicedo, Leandro Troussard, and Pascal Gross to a sixth-place finish, a spot in the Europa League, and some of the coolest play in England.

Alas, while the Mandate of Video Game Heaven is fruitful, it is not forever. Star players get poached, good managers leave for bigger stadiums, executives leave to oversee larger transfer kitties, and those who remain at the club fail to find adequate replacements. Eventually, the club begins to fall.

It would be understandable if Brighton fans were worried that the club might be at the start of the end. All of the aforementioned figures from the majestic 2022-23 season are gone. So is former head of recruitment Sam Jewell, who earlier this year joined Paul Winstanley, the man Jewell replaced in 2022, at Chelsea. Last season was itself a little underwhelming. De Zerbi's avant-garde tactics proved less effective when the opposition had a season to prep for it, the club never really replaced the quality of Mac Allister and Caicedo, and injuries meant the team couldn't put out its strongest lineup consistently enough to show its best self. Coming into this season, the Seagulls picked a young and wholly unproven manager to succeed De Zerbi, threw tons and tons of money into the market to replenish their talent reserves, and had to hope that the heavenly mandate that had blessed their decision-making in years prior hadn't yet abandoned them, plunging them into the hell that is the relegation dogfight. And while it's still early days, it looks like Brighton's still got it.

Through three matches—two in the Premier League, one in the League Cup—Brighton has a perfect record, scoring nine goals and conceding only one. What's maybe most impressive about this start to the season is how clear it is that Brighton still has so much room to improve. Despite the three wins, the Seagulls haven't put together a single, comprehensively great performance. The league-opener against Everton showed Brighton looking exactly like what it was: a team in its first match of the year, still knocking off flakes of rust, working out the kinks with a brand-new manager. No matter—Brighton still smacked three goals past the overmatched Toffees.

Next up was Manchester United. This was Brighton's most encouraging outing so far, as they played the much better pedigreed Red Devils evenly, and when the stoppage-time goal that gave the home team the victory came off of star forward João Pedro's head, no one could argue that the Seagulls hadn't deserved it. Tuesday brought Brighton's first cup match of the campaign when Crawley Town stopped by. The 4-0 scoreline of Brighton's win flatters the actual performance, which was pretty shaky. Crawley dominated the first half and probably should've scored a goal or two in that time to translate the run of play onto the scoreboard. But Brighton resisted, scored three goals after the break, and left a few plays on the field that testified to the squad's depth and remarkable talent.

As the new face of the club, all eyes at the start of this season have been on manager Fabian Hürzeler. The Texas-born (!!) German coach looked on paper to be a coherent substitute for De Zerbi, though certainly still a risky one. Like De Zerbi, Hürzeler is known as an experimental, attack-minded manager who likes his teams to dominate possession, founding it all in intricate, very deep build-ups in their own penalty box. But Hürzeler, whose 31 years make him the youngest ever non-interim Premier League manager, has very little notable managerial experience, getting this job after just a season and a half at St. Pauli in Germany's second division. It wouldn't have been any surprise if the Brighton job proved too much, too soon for Hürzeler.

Thankfully, Hürzeler already seems like yet another of Brighton's great finds. While not as radical as his Italian predecessor, Hürzeler's tactical flexibility might prove even more effective than De Zerbi's rigid commitment to his ideals. Anyone who thought Hürzeler might look to immediately snap Brighton's players into the exotic, amoeba-like, midfield-barren 3-4-3 system that brought him so much success at St. Pauli would have been surprised by the fairly standard and structured 4-3-3 Brighton has used in all three games so far. In addition, Brighton's possession numbers have varied widely across the three matches (ranging from 62 percent against Everton to 44 percent against Crawley), as have its defensive setups, at times chasing opposing center backs with a very high press and at others sitting off in a mid block. This team is more direct than the one last year, is less prone to catastrophic defensive breakdowns, and brings more diverse approaches to both attacking and defending. Rather than proving his mettle as a firebrand, bringing to his new team the fanciful tactics that would see him the subject of long, fawning Twitter threads from the often grating tactico community, Hürzeler seems to have instead preferred a less flashy approach of preparing his team to thrive in any kind of game, based primarily on the particular skills of the players at hand.

And, befitting a game that belongs to the players, the players themselves are the real stars of Brighton's hot start. The best testament to Hürzeler's managerial bona fides is how well so many of his charges are playing. After struggling to stay healthy last year, Kaoru Mitoma looks to have picked up where he left off in 2023, already scoring a goal and an assist in his two league starts. His strike against Everton showed the powerful running and intelligent positioning that made him one of the breakout stars of the league season a couple years ago.

Yankuba Minteh was the one who set Mitoma up on that Everton goal, and the winger, newly signed from Newcastle United, looks a formidable talent. The 20-year-old Gambian was a revelation on loan at Feyenoord last season, and in his two EPL starts you can see why Brighton stumped up £30 million for him. The ball touches his left foot and the entire pitch tilts towards the opposing goal, such is the power of his speed, dribbling, and wicked shot.

Rounding out the attack are Danny Welbeck and João Pedro. Welbeck has arguably been Brighton's best player so far this season, racking up two goals, an assist, and countless little touches and layoffs that help the team progress the ball up the pitch and into one of its venomous transition attacks. João Pedro once again looks like a burgeoning superstar, this time doing so from a deeper position, playing an interesting role as more or less one of the two no. 8s in the middle of the team's 4-3-3. At St. Pauli, Hürzeler's system was designed to provide the best attacking opportunities to his nominal central midfielders, so it makes sense that he'd place his best Brighton player there too. Against Man United, the Brazilian scored the winner and also played the unlocking pass that resulted in the opening goal.

If injuries were the main factor that limited the team last season, Brighton is in a much better place to deal with them this time around. The depth here is really something. You can see it in how Brighton was able to start two entirely different XIs between last Sunday's United match and Wednesday's cup tie against Crawley. A competition like the League Cup is very important to clubs like Brighton, as it offers a rare opportunity to go deep in a tournament and potentially even win a trophy. That Brighton could start a fully rotated side in that competition (albeit against a team in the third division) and still expect to win says a lot about how much talent there is throughout the roster.

And who wouldn't have faith in the team's depth when you have guys like Carlos Baleba (a ball-carrying phenom sorely misused by De Zerbi, who tried to fit him into a one- or two-touch straightjacket) capable of doing something like this—

—or Julio Enciso, who oozes finesse and lives to dazzle with sick touches like this:

And that's just the start! Simon Adingra has helped put a goal on the scoreboard in all three of the team's matches. Georginio Rutter, Mats Wieffer, Matt O'Riley (though now out with a major injury), Brajan Gruda, and Ferdi Kadioglu are all new signings who have the talent to become key contributors in the near future. Pervis Estupiñán and Evan Ferguson are coming back from injuries, Solly March is getting closer to his return, and Igor Júlio, Tariq Lamptey, and Jack Hinshelwood should make for solid rotation options. Brighton has bet big (spending some £200 million!) on maintaining its spot as one of the best teams outside of the big six, and while, again, the season is young, the early signs are encouraging.

With this Mandate of Video Game Heaven still intact, Brighton is sure to win the attention and plaudits of the casual fans who recognize themselves and their principles in the mandate. Whether that's enough for the true Brighton diehards is something only they can answer. While there is much to admire in the way a club like Brighton runs, there's also a risk that the fandom these kinds of operations elicit is a bit shallow. Who or what, exactly, are you rooting for when the manager changes every couple years, the players come and go, and tenures are judged by how many buy-lows the team is eventually able to turn into sell-highs? Even in the video game world, the managerial mindset that career mode saves inculcate can quickly feel hollow after you find yourself speeding through the seasons to get to the transfer windows, where real the action is.

Hopefully Brighton becomes the kind of place where at least some of their great finds stick around and develop strong bonds with the club and its fans, ones that reach deeper than what can be expressed in the difference between the club's buying and selling prices. To that end, I'll be sad to see Billy Gilmour go if he does indeed complete his mooted move to Napoli. It seems like a great gig for him, but it would've been nice if a Brit like him could've joined Brighton as a youngster cast out of a big club like Chelsea, built himself up as a great player, and spent at least a sizable chunk of his career in front of the Seagulls' fans, who could claim to have not only witnessed his blooming, but to have also spent a long time admiring the petals.

But hey, I'm positive the vast majority of the Brighton faithful is loving life at the moment, and should the club continue on its current trajectory, there's a great chance Brighton can soon usher in a new era where it both spots and retains great talents who are happy to stick around at a team with Brighton's ambitions and success. And regardless, as I am not a real Brighton fan myself, I will enjoy this budding season as I have the last couple, in awe of the club's recruitment, enchanted by the fruits of that recruitment, and hoping for the best for all involved, both there in Brighton and beyond. As a disciple of the video game way, I am compelled to pull for any club that possesses the mandate, and it looks like Brighton hasn't lost it quite yet.