One of the first phone calls Fabian Hurzeler made when he was appointed head coach by Brighton & Hove Albion in June was to the club’s great survivor Andrew Crofts.
Hurzeler appreciated that having somebody who knows the club inside out on his support staff would be invaluable. That instinct was vindicated by the impression made by Crofts in Hurzeler’s early weeks in charge.
This led to a promotion for the 40-year-old in August from first team coach — Crofts’ title under former head coach Roberto De Zerbi — to assistant head coach alongside Jonas Scheuermann, the 38-year-old former assistant manager at Bundesliga side Augsburg brought to the Amex Stadium by Hurzeler in July.
Hurzeler’s two No 2’s came to the fore after he received a red card from referee Rob Jones in the aftermath of the tackle by Morgan Gibbs-White on Joao Pedro which led to a second yellow card for the Nottingham Forest midfielder in the 83rd minute of Sunday’s 2-2 draw at the Amex.
Scheuermann oversaw operations from the technical area for the rest of the match, while Crofts conducted the post-match press conference. Hurzeler says: “I will never be successful on my own and I will never achieve great things on my own. It’s always doing it together, listening to each other, listening to the opinion of the person in front of me and valuing each other. That is one of the most important things in working together, having a good relationship.”
Hurzeler has avoided a touchline ban for Saturday’s game at Chelsea, enabling him to maintain the three-way relationship with his assistants which is an integral part of the way the 31-year-old German works before, during and after matches.
Stamford Bridge is a poignant venue for Crofts. He started his playing career at Chelsea as a schoolboy, living in a west London townhouse at the age of 15 with future club icon John Terry. Crofts told The Athletic in a 2020 interview: “It was brilliant, with some real happy memories. I was living with someone who was breaking into the first team and who I looked up to. He looked after me, made me feel welcome, relaxed and excited about football.”
Crofts feared the worst when Chelsea told him they would not be taking him on full-time on their youth training scheme. “I thought that was me done,” he said. That gloomy forecast of his prospects proved to be unfounded. Crofts had an 18-year playing career as a combative midfielder in the top four tiers of English football, which included playing in the Premier League for Norwich between spells with Brighton in League One (2009-2010) and in the Championship (2012-16).
Crofts re-joined Brighton from Yeovil for a third stint in 2019 as player-coach of the under-21s. He became head coach in 2021, ending his playing career at the age of 37, when Simon Rusk joined Stockport County. Crofts has provided continuity at first team level ever since the departure of head coach Graham Potter, along with his backroom staff, to Chelsea in September 2022.
Crofts filled the void as interim head coach without taking charge of a match, as Potter’s exit and the arrival of De Zerbi coincided with an international break. De Zerbi brought several of his fellow Italians with him to form the bulk of the backroom team, but he retained Crofts on the coaching staff. This scenario has been repeated by Hurzeler.
Crofts has also progressed into a key coaching role with Wales, becoming assistant in August to new national head coach and former international team-mate Craig Bellamy. Crofts is performing the job in conjunction with his upgraded Brighton duties, which have been accompanied by a new contract.
Crofts qualified to play for Wales through a grandparent, even though he was born in south east England
He was capped 29 times at international level, lining up alongside Wales legends Gareth Bale and Ryan Giggs. Hurzeler says: “Crofty is a legend here at (Brighton). He’s a former player who brings great knowledge into our coaching team. He knows the Premier League quite well, he has great knowledge as a coach. He is also now assistant coach of Wales, which shows that everyone wants to work with him.
“I was very pleased when I heard he had extended his contract, because I worked hard for this. I really wanted to work with him, because I know his value for the club. I also know his value for me as a young coach.”
Crofts and Scheuermann possess strong coaching credentials. Crofts holds the UEFA Pro Licence, the highest level coaching qualification in the game. He was on the same course as Joao Sacramento, Jose Mourinho’s assistant during his spells at Tottenham and Roma, and now assistant manager to Christophe Galtier at Al Duhail in Qatar.
Scheuermann completed the German Football Association’s Pro Licence programme earlier this year. He started out in Germany on the coaching staff of lower leagues club SV Waldeck-Obermenzing for a decade, joining Augsburg initially as under-19s assistant coach in 2015. He became first team assistant in 2017, working under seven different head coaches at the Bavarian club in as many years.
Hurzeler says: “I didn’t work with him before. Jonas brings amazing energy to the whole club, the whole environment, the whole atmosphere. He is full of positivity. He’s an energiser for the whole club and that’s what makes him so special. I’ve never met a person with this energy, not only to do it for ten minutes or 20 minutes. He is doing it consistently every day and I think the environment where you are working is so important.
“That you have a good environment with positivity. He is a key for that. We have a really good balance, a good mix, in our coaching team. Not only my assistants, my analyst, the goalkeeping coaches. It is always a thing of togetherness.”
(Top photos: Getty Images)
