Fabian Hurzeler: Being sacked as an art dealer helped make me a Premier League manager at 31

Brighton’s German manager on accusations of privilege, why some see him as ‘an a—hole’ and being reduced to tears by Man Utd in 1999

Fabian Hürzeler is a young man but he has been coaching for almost a decade now, and in that time he has realised that listening and learning is far more important than screaming and shouting. “God gives us two ears and one mouth, to listen more than to talk,” he says.
On this particular occasion, though, in his first interview with British newspapers, the onus is on Brighton’s head coach to do most of the talking. Over an hour of gripping conversation at the club’s training ground, he does just that, explaining how a dentist’s son from Munich propelled himself to a Premier League managerial role at the age of just 31.
It is a tale of sacrifice, courage, education, unfulfilled dreams and stubbornness. It is also a story of early-morning bike rides, childhood tears, furious card games and, perhaps most unexpectedly, art dealing.
Let’s start there, with the art. Hürzeler’s coaching career began in the lower leagues of German football, at an amateur club in the fifth tier. It was not a full-time role, and it was certainly not well-paid. He needed more work, alongside his coaching, and found it with an art dealer in Munich.
Hürzeler is honest about his ineffectiveness in the art industry. “I got fired,” he laughs. “The owner was very polite but one day she recognised that I was watching football, instead of really working, because we didn’t sell any paintings. When I sold one painting in a month, it was like I was done. I’m honest now, I watched a lot of football games during this time.
“But that was also a good time for me. There was an interesting thing about selling these paintings, because if you want to sell something to a person, you have to try to convince him.
“You can’t say: ‘Look at this picture. It’s an amazing picture and it’s from Roy Lichtenstein or Damien Hirst. What an amazing artist, blah, blah, blah.’ No, if you really want to sell something – and it’s similar to being a coach – you have to understand the needs and the wishes of the clients.
“You have to ask: What are you looking for? What are your needs? What are your interests in life? Then you understand the person. It’s similar to the players. The most important thing is to understand the person behind the player.”
Hürzeler was a player himself, for a time. He was in Bayern Munich’s academy and represented Germany at youth level. He made it to Bayern’s reserves and dreamed of playing for the club he supported (his first footballing memory is Bayern’s 1999 Champions League final defeat by Manchester United, which reduced him to tears at the age of six).
But he soon came to the realisation that he was never going to reach the highest level as a player. Instead, he decided to get there as a coach. “Something was missing. I was a clever player, but not the fastest. I couldn’t defend my own box and I couldn’t score. I was really honest with myself.”
In Germany, as he climbed the coaching ranks, there were occasional sneers at Hürzeler’s background. A veiled accusation that his privileged upbringing provided him with some sort of advantage in the sport.
“My parents are dentists and people say: ‘Oh, he has such a good life, he gets everything from his parents.’ No one knows how I got educated. I was really professional, and no one knows that. I don’t care what people think about my private life, because I know how it is and how it was.
“I didn’t drink alcohol, for example, until I was 18. I didn’t go to any parties until I was 18. I had a girlfriend and if she went to a party, I said no. I really made a lot of sacrifices in my life to become a professional footballer.”
From his parents, Hürzeler received lessons in discipline, work ethic and competitiveness. Family card games with his siblings were relentlessly ferocious (Uno was a favourite) and daily life was full of reminders that hard work mattered.
“My parents worked so hard to get where they are. They didn’t have to tell me the values that are important to them, they showed me by doing it themselves. My father cycled to work, no matter the weather. I will never forget it. It was six o’clock in the morning, it would be raining and I would say: ‘Come on, let’s drive the car.’ He said: ‘No, we go by bike.’”
A relentless desire to succeed has always been part of Hürzeler’s character. “Talk to some guys who I played against and they would say: ‘What an a—hole.’ It was always about winning the game. That was deep in the DNA at Bayern.”
Hürzeler was 23 when he was appointed player-manager of Pipinsried, in Germany’s fifth tier. He enjoyed a spectacular start, earning promotion in his first year, but soon hit his first obstacles: in the fourth division, Pipinsried lost their first seven games.
“I was sitting in a coffee shop and the media called and said: ‘Do you think, if you lose the next game, you will still be the coach?’” he remembers. “I had to deal with this business really early.
“We went to the fourth league by playing positional football, with a lot of possession. I was stubborn. I said: ‘I will continue playing like this because it’s my style of play, I want to have possession.’ But it went completely wrong. I was always thinking we need to win the game beautifully, because of my career at Bayern. I learnt that it’s not about that. I really learnt.”
After four years at Pipinsried, Hürzeler moved to second-tier side St Pauli as an assistant coach in 2020. Two years later, at the age of 29, he became their head coach. Last season he led them to the Bundesliga 2 title, with his work catching the eye of Brighton.
The Premier League is a new challenge, and it was a bold move for Hürzeler as well as for Brighton. “Of course there were rational arguments to stay [in Germany]. It was my comfort zone. But my stomach said to go out of it.”
His start at Brighton has been impressive, with the club in sixth place after seven Premier League matches. Already his touchline antics have prompted headlines – “when I see myself on the sideline, I’m thinking sometimes ‘are you crazy?’” – and he has clearly bonded with many of his players, even if he refuses ever to join them on a night out (“you have to keep that distance”).
“I am their age so I think we have the same needs sometimes. We are in the same situation. Maybe we lose a girlfriend, maybe we experience the same thing. Maybe we have a similar sense of humour.”
The mention of humour, of having fun every single day, brings Hürzeler to another of his learnings, this time from Tony Bloom, the Brighton owner and renowned poker player. “I learnt one sentence from Tony,” he says. “If you enjoy what you are doing, the luck will come.”