To understand Fabian Hürzeler’s journey to becoming the youngest permanent manager in the history of the Premier League, it is instructive to go back to 2016, when he was cutting his teeth as player-manager of the German fifth-tier side Pipinsried. Struggling to make ends meet after the bold decision to give up his professional playing career at the age of 23 to concentrate on coaching, he started working for an art dealer in Munich.
“When I sold one picture or one painting in a month, I was done,” Brighton’s manager says. “So I watched a lot of football games during this time. That was also a reason why I got fired. The owner recognised that I’m watching more football during working time instead of really working because we didn’t sell any more paintings. But that was also a good time for me.
“If you want to sell something to a person, you have to try to convince him by doing something. And you can’t go there and say: ‘Look at this picture. It’s an amazing picture. It’s an amazing painting and it’s from Roy Lichtenstein or Damien Hirst. What an amazing artist he was, blah, blah, blah.’ That’s a little bit similar to being a coach. You have to understand the needs and the wishes from the clients.
“The most important is to understand the person behind the player. What are his needs? What are his values? How is he educated? How was his past? Where does he get education? How was the culture or how is the culture, for example, in Gambia with [Yankuba] Minteh or Simon Adingra in Côte d’Ivoire? In comparison, for example, with James Milner, it’s completely different. So you have to understand the person behind the player.”
It’s a recurring theme during an hour spent in Hürzeler’s engaging company. Every question is answered with honesty and depth, from growing up as the son of two dentists with four ultra-competitive siblings to his reputation as a hot-headed midfielder who picked up 46 yellow and six red cards in 91 matches for Pipinsried. “Honestly, when you talk to some guys who I played against, they would say: ‘What an asshole,’” he admits.
Hürzeler’s mood has been helped by Brighton’s astonishing comeback against Tottenham before the international break. Trailing 2-0 at half-time, they secured a statement victory with goals from Minteh, Georginio Rutter and Danny Welbeck. Martin Keown had described the 31-year-old Hürzeler as “wet behind the ears” after Brighton’s 4-2 defeat by Chelsea the previous week in which Cole Palmer scored four times in 20 first-half minutes, but Hürzeler says he always believed his players could turn things around against Spurs.
“I’m not surprised about what my team is able to do, because I think they have the potential to beat everyone. It was not a loud half-time, it was like a more effective half-time, and also the players talked to each other and the players took responsibility. Against Chelsea it was a little bit different …”
The defeat at Stamford Bridge has been the only blip in Hürzeler’s transition to the Premier League after leading St Pauli to promotion to the Bundesliga. Brighton are sixth – where his predecessor, Roberto De Zerbi, finished in his first season – heading into Saturday’s trip to Newcastle and there is renewed optimism at the club. Hürzeler, who keeps the sleeve tattoos on both his arms hidden under his tracksuit top during our meeting at Brighton’s training ground, believes his age can give him an advantage over more experienced contemporaries in building relationships with players.
“I’m at their age, so I think we have the same needs sometimes,” he says. “We are in the same situations. Maybe we lose a girlfriend. Maybe you experience the same things because they’re the same age, you know? It’s also an important thing to have humour in this building. I learned one sentence from Tony Bloom: if you enjoy what you are doing, the luck will come.”
Hürzeler was born in Houston but his family moved back to Germany when he was two. He grew up in Munich, where his father always cycled to his dental practice. “That was a big thing for me – no matter how the weather was, he went to work and I went to the train station [with him] to go to school,” he says. “It was rainy outside and I said: ‘Come on, let’s drive the car to the train station.’ He said: ‘No, we go by bike.’ And at 6.30am, we went by bike. He got home around 8 or 9 o’clock and sometimes I came home with him. So you see how hard he was working for that. It was not only him, also my mother, and that’s what I really learned from them. You really need to work hard to achieve something. It doesn’t come to you and also there will be bad moments.”
Hürzeler played for Germany at several youth levels after coming through Bayern Munich’s academy. He thinks his passion for winning came from playing games such as Uno and Catan as a child: “When I’m sitting with my family, let’s say at Christmas time, and we played games and I lost the game, the night was over for me. We are all made of the same blood, so my sisters and my brother and also my parents – my mother’s more calm – but my father and my brother and sisters when they lose, they were the same. So for one person the night was brilliant and for the others, there was competition. That’s how I grew up; it was a competition all the time, and that’s why I’m very competitive.”
The realisation he was never going to fulfil his dreams as a player after failing to make the breakthrough at Hoffenheim or 1860 Munich after leaving Bayern hit Hürzeler hard. “I couldn’t defend my own box and I couldn’t score. So I was really honest to myself at this time. The decision was more like: ‘I have to stay in this business because I love it.’ I started being a coach from that point.”
Pipinsried achieved successive promotions and Hürzeler also worked as an assistant for Germany’s under-18s and under-20s. At 29, he became the second-youngest ever head coach in German football’s second tier after stepping up from assistant at St Pauli in December 2022. Hürzeler admits he was “lucky” to have avoided regulations in his homeland that now require young coaches to gain more experience before being awarded their pro licence, but does not think age should be a barrier. “For me it’s always about good or bad. It’s not about age – it’s the same for the players.”
Ange Postecoglou revealed before the meeting with Brighton that Hürzeler asked so many questions during a visit to Tottenham’s training ground last season that he had to “palm him off” to another member of his coaching staff. Hürzeler, who says he relaxes in his spare time by “watching football”, also picked up tips from De Zerbi at Brighton, a few months before replacing him. They share a tendency to be excitable on the touchline. Hürzeler was shown seven yellow cards during his final season in Germany and was sent off after the late melee against Nottingham Forest at the Amex last month, leading to an £8,000 Football Association fine.
“It’s authentic,” Hürzeler says of his touchline persona. “I don’t have to be an actor. It’s just how I am. Honestly, when I see myself on the sideline, I’m thinking sometimes: ‘Are you crazy? That’s unbelievable. What are you doing there?’ Because in normal life, I’m calm. I try to think rationally, not too much emotion; I try to be more, you say, stoic? “I think it’s important and on the other side, football is my passion. So I really feel it when I’m outside on a training ground. I feel like I want it so badly. I want the guys to really improve every day and I want them to deserve what they worked for. I try to support them and to help them. That’s why sometimes I get very emotional, but it’s a very positive thing that I don’t have to be artificial. It’s just myself – that’s my personality.”
