Fabian Hürzeler: The Youngest Premier League Manager, A Tactical Master
You rarely see a manager younger than his players, do you?
More often than not teams prefer a manager who has experience and wisdom on their side, think the likes of Carlo Ancelotti! But at just the age of 31, Fabian Hürzeler and Brighton are challenging the management status quo, becoming the youngest permanent head coach in the history of the Premier League, but what was it that made Brighton hire him?
“Football is my passion and I try to convince my players by using the power of ideas. I want to value and improve every player that’s my leadership style, to challenge the establishment.”
From Bayern’s Academy to Premier League Stardom
Hürzeler started his career not as a manager, but as a player in the Bayern Munich academy! Making 36 appearances for the second team before moving between German Clubs, finally settling on a player-coaching role as the head coach of FC Pripinsried, moving up the ranks in the German youth system as the assistant coach of the U20s and U18’s side, spending most of his manager career languishing in the lower divisions of German Football, it wasn’t long before he got his big break
On the sixth of December, in 2022, Hürzeler became the youngest head coach in the history of the 2. Bundesliga became the manager of St Pauli. following the dismissal of head coach Timo Schultz, and from there, his rise to the top began! Hürzeler managed to completely turn around St. Pauli’s fortunes, taking them from the bottom of the division, all the way to the midtable, nearly making the promotion playoffs after 10 wins in a row, and it wouldn’t take long before they did make the promotion playoffs spot they did go one better, with Hürzeler’s side winning the league in his second season as head coach.
Tactical Brilliance: Possession-Based Football
One of the main factors in St Pauli’s success under Hürzeler was their possession statistics, with the German side having a 57.2% possession rate, the highest in the entire league, and this just highlights the kind of manager the youngster is, placing his focus on dominating the ball, but let’s take a look at how exactly they did this.
On paper, Hürzeler lined up with a 3-4-3 tactical setup, utilizing a back 3 with the wingbacks pushing up the pitch, however, it’s how he set up on the ball and in possession that made St Pauli so difficult to dispossess.
Rather than using his back 3 in the buildup, Fabian Hürzeler instead chose to deploy his central centre back into the midfield, turning it into a buildup beginning with a 3, but with the goalkeeper instead of the centre back.
You can see two things in these two pieces of match footage! In the first passage of the play, you can see the goalkeeper stepping forward to get in line with the centre-backs, creating a back 3, it’s not often you see goalkeepers taking such active roles in the buildup, is it? And this is exactly why he was one of the highest-ranked goalkeepers for passes attempted last season!
The second thing you can see from this match footage is how St Paulli formed their back 2 system! With the defender playing in the heart of defence pushing forward to play in the midfield, with the remaining centre backs pushing inwards to form a back 2 while the fullbacks inverted into midfield to give the defenders an option to recycle the ball!
Not only that, but it also gave the team distributors, the centre backs and the goalkeeper, a solid passing base to work with, allowing them to build up from the back, but there’s something much more methodical at work here with this system!
Take a look at the situation here! You can see the opposition front 3 pressing up on the defence, but that leaves a space open somewhere, where you might think, Everywhere is the answer! If the Hoffenheim fullbacks push up onto the wingbacks who are placed out wide, then it leaves the defence vulnerable to the front 3! And if the Hoffenheim fullbacks choose to remain in defence, the fullbacks will be open! St. Pauli is set up with a structure that means they can’t lose possession due to the overwhelming amount of options they have available to them.
Using this 2-3-2-3 buildup system, Hürzeler uses this system to overwhelm the opposition in transition! As we can see here against Holsten Kiel, where St Pauli attacks the defence with 5 players on the front foot, overwhelming them through sheer attacking power, Fabian Hürzeler’s side utilizes possession to create an overload in attack, which leads to a high volume of shots, which is evident by the fact they averaged the highest amount of shots in the entire division last year!
Fabian Hürzeler’s Impact at Brighton
Brighton have been flying it in the Premier League, haven’t they? 7 points from their opening 3 games, including a victory against Manchester United, and a draw against one of the league’s best sides in Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, how exactly have they performed so well?
Looking at Hürzeler’s Brighton team, you can see how he utilizes the possession-based approach he was known for at St.Pauli against Everton, with Joao Pedro dropping deep to form a 2-2-1-3 buildup, Hürzeler’s side can create a 4 v 3 in transition, with the back 3 draw onto Pedro and Welbeck, Mitoma and new signing Minteh are free out wide.
And after Fabian Hürzeler’s pressure led to Everton going down to ten men, we were able to see Brighton’s 2-3-2-3 buildup pattern once more. With Brighton attacking with 5 men on the front foot! The wide players once again overloaded that right-hand side, with the Everton back 3 unable to pick up Minteh without Ashley Young on the pitch, Hürzeler uses this possession-based buildup to completely overwhelm his opponents on the counter!
The Counter-Press and Defensive Adaptations
Another fundamental part of Fabian Hürzeler’s tactics that makes him such an innovative coach is his counter-press, while it’s true St Pauli weren’t a pressing side out of possession, one of the key parts of their system was turning over the ball when they lost it in offensive areas or the counter press!
Taking a look at this goal against Holsten Kiel as an example, as soon as his side loses the ball, you can see the 5 attacking players he’s famous for close down the options, with a man-to-man pressing system, but with two players pressing the player in possession, Holsten Kiel was forced to give the ball away! Which lead to St Pauli’s pressure ending with the ball in the back of the net for them moments later!
But in the Premier League, the same tactics you used in the second division in Germany won’t fly! That’s why Fabian Hürzeler adapted his game, taking his counter-pressing system but going about it in a completely different manner! with Milner in midfield here closing down all available options, instead of going man-to-man, he’s closing down the space in midfield as well! Piling the pressure on the opposition defender with the ball while also cutting off all paths to midfield, forcing the Everton defender to play the ball directly into the path of Mats Wieffler, leaving the Seagulls with an easy counter-attack to capitalize on, even at the age of 38, which is older than Hürzeler himself, how crazy is it to see James Milner is still doing the job?
Adapting to the Premier League: Defensive Strategies
To succeed in the Premier League, you have to have a certain approach to the game out of possession, so it’s no surprise that Fabian Hürzeler picked up on what Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal and Pep Gurdiola’s Manchester City were doing with their approach to setting up their defence outside of possession! But what exactly was that?
Both teams pressed the least in the Premier League last season when out of possession, choosing instead to settle in a mid-block that makes them almost impossible to break down when out of possession! And that’s why they’re some of the best defensive sides in England!
And this is one of the principles of his game that Hürzeler shares with Guardiola, while his team throw numbers forward in possession, outside of it, they settle into a compact 5-4-1, or 4-2-3-1 system depending on the opposition, Which you can see from the tweet here! But why exactly does he do this? To trap opponents in the wide areas! By forcing their opponents into wide areas, Not only do they trap the opposition in one-on-one situations, but it also allows them to counterattack from wide!
Take a look at the fourth passage of play from this video here, isn’t it impressive how fast Fabian Hürzeler’s side go from every man behind the ball to attacking with 4 players in an instant?
Tactical Insanity: No Midfield
But the pinnacle of Fabian Hürzeler’s tactical knowledge is something you don’t see very often in football, a team playing without a midfield. That’s crazy isn’t it, apparently not for the Brighton manager, who frequently utilized the 4-0-5 formation we see in action here, but why would a manager willingly abandon his midfield?
Outside of Possession, the adaptability of Hürzeler’s side meant they could fit into any sort of formation seamlessly, if it’s the 5-2-3 systems, fullbacks can slot in as centre backs and wingers can drop back as fullbacks, and if it’s the 3-4-3 system, fullbacks can invert into midfield and as we’ve mentioned before, centre backs can slot in as central midfielders, all players in Fabian Hürzeler’s side need to be capable of playing across any position on the field because in possession, things can get crazy!
Just take a look at this! Hürzeler’s side when they have the pall, becomes a 4-0-5 setup, to overwhelm the opposition through their numbers, Fabian Hürzeler likes to spread his players across the pitch, utilizing the full length of the pitch to create gaps in the opposition’s defence!
This isn’t a tactic we’ve seen the German utilize yet in the Premier League, and that’s for obvious reasons, to use such an attacking-minded tactic against teams like Manchester United and Arsenal would be suicide, and we know this because we see the weaknesses of this tactics in Erik Ten Haag’s Manchester United! But it just showcases how wild Fabian Hürzeler’s thinking can be!
Worth The Risk?
Was employing Fabian Hürzeler a huge risk by Brighton? Absolutely, taking a coach who’s only been coaching at senior level for two years, who makes such insane tactical calls you can hardly believe them, that’s beyond a risk, but that’s the kind of club Brighton and Hove Albion are, they sign players young before bigger clubs can swoop in and take them through their fantastic scouting network, why is it such a surprise that they’d do the same with their manager?
And that’s just Brighton’s principles, Roberto De Zerbi was a relatively unknown name when they hired him to take the job from Graham Potter whose tenure was so good that he earned a big money move to Chelsea, but a few months ago he was one of the most in-demand managers in football, being touted as a Pep Guardiola replacement, the Seagulls development of both players and managers is why they’re such a successful side, and it’s why they’re reaping the rewards of signing Fabian Hürzeler.
It’s early days yet, but Brighton are building a team that might contend for Europe once more with a Manager of the Month.
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