One year has passed since Roberto De Zerbi took the Brighton job. Upon his arrival to the south of England, the tactician underwent heavy scrutiny from pundits for not knowing enough about “our game”, even though no English manager has ever won the English Premier League. The truth is that De Zerbi never cared about what others thought anyway.

Brighton fans have also learned to filter out the noise. For the first time in 122 years, their side hosted its inaugural UEFA competition match. All this after clinching sixth place in the Premier League, defeating a bevy of big-name glitterati along the way, including Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. Despite that domestic success, the UEFA Europa League is a gargantuan step forward for a club that was once sold for £100 ($122.90) to escape liquidation. Twenty-six years later, the seaside town casts its net into European waters. All on De Zerbi’s watch.

The Italian Job

Incredibly, the brilliant Italian has achieved this while overseeing the departures of Brighton’s best players. The club has generated £363M ($418M) in sales over the past 13 months as the world’s richest clubs came knocking for Leandro Trossard (Arsenal), Alexis MacCallister (Liverpool) and Moises Caicedo (Chelsea). With most coaches thriving by purchasing high-profile players, De Zerbi has maintained positive results undeterred by glory-hunting elites poaching his most important performers.

Been there, done that. At Sassuolo, De Zerbi stoically learned to stay focused when confronted with distractions. Throughout his three-year tenure in Emilia Romagna, a deluge of future stars were lured away to Inter Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina and Juventus. Despite constantly having his toys taken away, De Zerbi’s brave brand of high-octane football continued to overwhelm Serie A’s top sides with a focus on fostering new talents and recycling used goods. It was simply a matter of like-for-like parts to keep the Neroverdi machine operating at full capacity, producing two consecutive 8th-place finishes between 2019-21.

In 2022, when Chelsea paid Graham Potter’s £21M ($25.8M) release clause, Brighton chairman Tony Bloom intelligently identified De Zerbi as the right man to employ as the club negotiated the sales of its prized jewels. “We’ve been particularly impressed by what Roberto did with Sassuolo, where he achieved successive top-half finishes with a relatively small club,” Barber admitted after the appointment was confirmed.

In short, Brighton is to the English Premier League what Sassuolo is to Serie A – two clubs striving to be the best of the rest. And this is precisely what De Zerbi has achieved on an individual level.

In August, UEFA announced its Men’s Coach of the Year winner at the Champions League group-stage draw ceremony. While Pep Guardiola’s victory was a formality, De Zerbi formed part of the peloton, attaining fourth place ahead of Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta but narrowly missing out on a podium finish due to the historic achievement of Napoli’s Luciano Spalletti and Simone Inzaghi’s end-of-season crescendo with Inter making it to the Champions League final.

It was official. De Zerbi had emerged as one of Europe’s elite coaches, taking the Premier League by storm – the very competition that many presumed he’d fail miserably in.

Answering his critics on the field

Graeme Souness assured listeners back in September of 2022, “I think it’s a risk,” the TalkSport pundit claimed. “You are bringing in someone who doesn’t know our game. Listen, he’s gone for an interview, so he spends a couple of hours on the internet, gets as much information as he possibly can. That’s not the work of a genius.”

In 2022, De Zerbi was permitted to leave his Shakhtar Donetsk position due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, but that didn’t stop Souness. “I think it’s a risk bringing someone with his CV, seven jobs in nine years. If you’re an outstanding coach then people want to hold onto you.”

Despite a failed six-match coaching stint with Torino in Serie A, the 70-year-old Scotsman continued to let loose, “They’re making the appointment of a manager who has no history in the English game. Doesn’t know anything about the league, doesn’t know the players…it’s a big risk.”

No one in England saw him coming. Amidst the chatter of naysayers, De Zerbi remained steadfast in self-belief. Now recognised by UEFA for transforming a team of nobodies into somebodies, the former attacking midfielder is leading the next wave of top-drawer managers.

The Under 50 Debate

Compared to other coaches under the age of 50, why should De Zerbi be rated so highly? Taking away nothing from Mikel Arteta (41), Xavi (43) and Simone Inzaghi (47), their respective successes at Arsenal, Barcelona and Inter are helped by working for prestigious entities where the primary worry is sorting out big-ego spats in the dressing room. At clubs like Brighton and Sassuolo, it’s about coming up with an exit strategy that can play through Erik ten Hag’s high press, creating a system that leads to 30-pass goals involving Pascal Groß and Tariq Lamptey, or converting Manuel Locatelli, Domenico Berardi and Giak Raspadori into Euro 2020 champions.

Sometimes, coaches can peak too early. André Villas-Boas obtained a UEFA Pro Licence under the guidance of Sir Bobby Robson as a teenager, ascended quickly as José Mourinho’s assistant throughout his twenties, and then went on to senior Premier League appointments that lasted a combined two and a half years at Chelsea and Tottenham. By his mid-thirties, he’d regressed to the Russian and Chinese leagues.

Working towards something big

In 2023, the fight for a podium finish was tight. Some could argue that Inzaghi didn’t deserve to be there based on Inter’s underwhelming performances in Serie A. On the other hand, Spalletti’s silver medal is thoroughly deserved after leading Napoli to glory, the 64-year-old’s recognition long overdue.

However, unlike Pep Guardiola’s glittering career at spendthrift Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, De Zerbi’s progression has come through patience and perseverance. The two are polar opposites. De Zerbi nurtures tomorrow’s ready-made starlets, Guardiola’s career hinges upon buying them and taking them to the next level.

The gap at the top is substantial. At the time of writing, 52-year-old Guardiola has overseen 162 matches in Europe, losing 26 times for an average of 2.10 points per match (PPM). Forever fighting an uphill battle with smaller sides, De Zerbi has three wins, three draws and five losses, averaging 1.09 ppm. That’s factoring in the 2-3 defeat to AEK Athens in a difficult group that contains Marseille and Ajax.

Dark Horses

On the home-front, Brighton fans will fancy their chances of FA Cup silverware. Currently occupying fifth position with four wins from five matches in the Premier League, De Zerbi will have the opportunity to make a statement by snatching another result from Guardiola in October.