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Roberto de Zerbi has talked about principles. Around the time he refused to leave Kiev until his Brazilian players and their young families obtained safe passage from the besieged Ukrainian capital.
And about how he turned down the Bologna job before joining Brighton because he didn’t feel comfortable replacing Sinisa Mihajlovic, a coach who had been fired for battling leukemia.
‘I don’t want to be a life teacher,’ says De Zerbi. “But I have rules that I don’t compromise on. One of the most important is that in front of the coach is the man and you can only play at a high level if there is connection, respect, trust between me and my players. You have to be honest, clear.
Roberto de Zerbi has been in charge of Brighton for almost two months since he replaced Graham Potter
It has been an eventful year for De Zerbi, who started the year on Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk before Russia’s invasion of the country in February.
“I don’t want people to think I’m a superhero. I am a human. I can make mistakes in the locker room. But I say I’m sorry. If one player plays less than the other and I decide that a player has to leave. But this is my job.’
With a funny story to prove his fallibility, De Zerbi, 43, returns to the Arsenal dressing room on Wednesday when his Brighton team toppled the Emirates front-runners to secure a ticket to the last 16 of the Carabao Cup.
‘An error? The last?’ he says, rising to recreate the moment with his assistant manager Enrico Venturelli. They’re jostling upstairs in Donatello, an Italian restaurant in Brighton, side by side with their eyes on an imaginary ball in the sky.
“I tried to explain the position I wanted my player to be in, to stay strong. I pushed Enrico and boff, he fell over.’
Venturelli interrupts: ‘I wasn’t ready yet, he surprised me.’ They laugh. ‘That was it,’ says De Zerbi. “One player was in tears with laughter.”
The Zerbi refused to leave Kiev until his Brazilian players in Shakhtar and their young families escaped the war-torn country, and he spent five days in a bunker, sheltered from artillery fire.
The vignette gives a glimpse into life in Brighton and the smooth transition since Graham Potter left for Chelsea. There were no major, drastic changes from the new boss, who lavishly praised his predecessor’s “fantastic work.”
But gradually he changed a few things and imbued the club with his own warm personality. There is plenty of hugging and laughing. They win, which helps.
“It’s already my team, but I’m chasing perfection and perfection doesn’t exist,” says De Zerbi. ‘So my work is never finished. A lot of coaches are a little crazy and I might be one of the craziest.’ There is a lot of talk about his relationship with Pep Guardiola. They were photographed together in September for a meal at Guardiola’s restaurant in Manchester. ‘Spanish… good jamon,’ De Zerbi nods.
They discussed Brighton before he took the job, and the Manchester City boss praised his friend before beating him 3-1 at the Etihad last month. “His impact in England will be huge,” Guardiola said.
The Zerbi is a pupil of Guardiola’s Cruyffian style. “I love trying to win the game with the ball,” he told Sportsmail. “I love it when my team keeps the ball, tries to lead the game and shows my players their quality. I like the winger trying to beat his man. I like those players who live between the lines. I like the central defender trying to dominate the game.’
But De Zerbi likens his own obsessive nature more to that of Marcelo Bielsa, the former Leeds boss and another coaching mentor, who invited him to study his methods for a week in 2017 when he was at French side Lille.
De Zerbi has his own obsessive nature as a manager compared to Marcelo Bielsa (pictured)
The Zerbi is good friends with Pep Guardiola and discussed the job in Brighton before taking it on
“As a person he is one of the best I know in my football life,” says De Zerbi of Bielsa. “A great coach who gave this opportunity to a young coach and talked to me like I was Louis van Gaal or Jose Mourinho.
“I’ve always had passion, but I looked at him and appreciated his work. Bielsa lives for his work, almost an obsession. Me too.’
It was an obsession that was interrupted earlier this year by the Russian attack on Ukraine. Shakhtar Donetsk manager Zerbi spent five days sheltering from artillery fire in a bunker below the Opera Hotel in Kiev, refusing to leave until his Brazilian players and their families were safely out of the country.
“At that time, I only had an obsession with helping my Brazilian players,” he recalls. “You think war is far from here, impossible, but when you’ve been inside you understand it isn’t.
“I’m sorry for the war, for the Ukrainian people, for my experience with those players. We would have made a fantastic team. The potential was infinite. We could have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League.”
De Zerbi’s breakthrough as a coach came in three years at Sassuolo, leading the small Emilian club to two eighth places in Serie A, while playing attractive attacking football and developing players such as Manuel Locatelli, Domenico Berardi and Giacomo Raspadori, all involved in Italy’s European Championship 2020. triumph.
When the war made him unemployed, there was no shortage of offers. He turned down Bologna, but agreed with Brighton, aware of the obvious parallels to Sassuolo.
“The style and mentality of the club, many things are close,” says De Zerbi. “Both clubs are very serious. The players are very good, but maybe they don’t believe in themselves enough. There is a very big potential and I am not afraid to raise the targets.’
The Zerbi had a tough first five games but now has three wins in a row
De Zerbi came in fourth with Brighton, with 13 points from six games, taking just two points from a difficult first five games, including games with Liverpool, City and Tottenham. Then a 4-1 win over Potter’s Chelsea led to three wins in a row, including Arsenal’s. Brighton are sixth ahead of Aston Villa on Sunday. I’m still mixing it up with the big boys. Rusty springs.
It is an integral part of De Zerbi’s identity, as it always was for Bielsa, and a motivation for him to become one of Italy’s strongest voices against plans for a European Super League.
“Football is for the people, the fans,” he says. “I’m not just saying this so people will like me. We are the same on the field. We have the opportunity to beat City. Eighty percent of the time we can lose, but the dream is to win. I want this dream.
‘This is football. The opportunity for Shakhtar to win the Champions League. When Leicester won the Premier League, it was the best of football. If you close these dreams for the small teams, you can close football for me.”
Those principles, again.
The Zerbi supports the American Express Shop Small campaign, which encourages the nation to support their high street and enjoy the benefits of small shopping ahead of Small Business Saturday on December 3. Brighton & Hove Albion sponsor American Express was the founder and remains the main supporter of Small Business Saturday, which is celebrating its tenth year in the UK. For more information visit: americanexpress.co.uk/shopsmall