Brighton and Hove Albion’s matchday experience has been hailed in Italy, and used as an example of how Serie A is languishing behind the Premier League.
Journalist Michele Criscitiello writes about the Seagulls today having recently travelled to England to watch Roberto de Zerbi’s side in action.
He was presumably there to see the Italian and Brighton in action for himself, with them continuing to impress this season under his leadership.
De Zerbi arrived at the club in September to replace Graham Potter following his move to Chelsea and has been a massive success since, building on his predecessors work and improving it.
Brighton are now seen as one of the best run and most attractive sides in the Premier League and Europe, sitting sixth in the table with ten wins from 20 games and just five points outside of the top six, albeit with two games in hand over Tottenham ahead of them.
That’s attracting serious attention and was seemingly enough to lure Criscitiello, who was impressed by things off of the pitch as well.
“I have just returned from London. Brighton to be precise. Thanks to De Zerbi, for two days, I breathed air of real football,” Forza Azzurri report him saying.
“In Italy we think that we are Serie A, that the world revolves around us and, instead, an hour and a half flight is enough to realise that we are nobody. Nobody cares about us. Our football is dead. The Italy of football no longer exists.
“Sports centres don’t exist, stadiums don’t even exist, marketing we don’t know how to do. Brighton is not United. It would be our Sassuolo or Cremonese. They arrive at the stadium two hours early.
“They raid the store, there’s no sandwich shop that stinks up everything and takes money away from the clubs, there’s no queue at the car parks, people don’t leave ten minutes early to avoid the traffic, in fact they stay two hours after the game to eat and drink.
“The club makes money before, during and after. This gap won’t be closed even in ten years. We are dead but we have forgotten to lie down.
“We only think about TV rights but even there we have lost appeal. Nobody does an examination of conscience.”
