Take Pep Guardiola’s praise with a pinch of salt. Whether it’s calculated or just naturally effusive passion, the Catalan compliments many of his rivals. His opinion of Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton, however, hits different.
“Pay attention to what I’m going to say, because I’m pretty convinced I’m right,” Guardiola declared in May. “I think Roberto is one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years. He’s unique. I had a feeling he’d have an impact in the Premier League, but not in this short a time.”
The mutual love-in had begun a decade earlier, at the start of the Italian’s managerial career, when De Zerbi visited the Dolomite mountains to watch Pep’s Bayern Munich train at a pre-season camp. It would be nine years until the pair would go head to head on the touchline, weeks after De Zerbi joined Brighton in September 2022.
City won 3-1, but it was one of only two league fixtures since the start of 2021-22 in which they’d had the minority of possession – and they were at home, too. ‘So what, if Brighton lost?’ you might reasonably reply, but it showed potential. “They propose a type of game we’re not used to,” Guardiola said afterwards.
And so in May 2023 – following
