Shot! Brighton v Espanyol 2022 pre-season friendly
The Seagulls took on LaLiga’s Parakeets at the Amex. Both teams found themselves without a star player due to impending transfers, but only Albion had something to crow about, firing five past their shot-shy guests.
During the pre-season, it has become the norm for top football clubs to arrange friendlies against prestigious sides. Some travel huge distances to play them. This year for example, Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton and Manchester City were in the USA, whilst Liverpool, Spurs, Crystal Palace, Leeds and Manchester United flew even further to play in the Far East and Australia.
Whilst acting as a curtain raiser to the new season, these friendlies are a chance to blood in new players, try out new tactics, as well as expanding the fanbase and introducing the new kits.
Unlike most other Premier League clubs, under Graham Potter, Brighton prefer to keep things low key. This year they played two behind closed doors games at their training ground, before taking on Reading at the Select Car Leasing Stadium. Their final match saw them host La Liga side Espanyol.
This was my fourth time covering a pre-season friendly at the Amex. My first, back in 2017, saw Albion up against one of Europe’s biggest club’s Atletico Madrid. A year later it was FC Nantes of France and last season they faced Getafe of La Liga.
This time, the high-flying Seagulls would be ruffling their feathers against the Parakeets.
RCD Espanyol de Barcelona, to give them their full name, are the city’s less well known club. After being relegated, Los Pericos were only promoted back to La Liga in 2020–21 and last season they finished 14th.
Since 2016, Espanyol have been owned by Chinese Rastar Group, but they’ve recently been put up for sale by Rastar’s chairman Chen Yansheng. It’s reported that PSG’s mega-rich Qatari owners have tabled a bid.
There was no getting away with the fact that this was hardly a glamour tie, something that as in previous year’s was reflected in the low attendance.
Ahead of last season, just over 7,000 fans turned up for the friendly against Getafe. Compare that to when Brighton hosted Atletico Madrid in 2017. As one of Europe’s biggest clubs, they attracted over 27,000, a record attendance for a pre-season friendly at Brighton. While Atleti brought superstar players like Griezman and Fernando Torres, Espanyol much like Getafe are a team devoid of household names.
Knowing that last season saw just a quarter of that Atleti attendance at the Amex, you’d have expected Brighton to have done something to encourage more fans to attend. Whether they promoted the game beforehand I don’t know, but surely they could have put on some pre-match entertainment to create a buzz around the game and some atmosphere in the stadium?
As it was, both stands behind the goals were completely empty and there wasn’t an Espanyol fan to be seen. Someone else absent from the Amex was Marc Cucurella. The day before, Brighton’s hirsute defender — who played for Espanyol’s academy for six years — put in a transfer request.
Interesting side-bar: Brighton acquired Cucurella from Getafe after he impressed during last year’s friendly. They paid around £15m for the Spaniard and now say they will only accept an offer of at least £50m for the sought-after 24-year-old who is attracting the interest of both Manchester City and Chelsea.
(On 3 August it was reported that Cucurella will be joining Chelsea for £52.5m. That’s a phenomenal return on investment for a player who’s only been at Brighton for twelve months!)
This year, in terms of something new, all Brighton could offer was the debut of their latest home kit, one that — it has to be said — has not been well-received. It’s a curious interpretation of Albion’s traditional blue and white vertical stripes, that to many peoples’ eyes looks more like a big white ‘H’.
Compare that to their just launched away kit, a crimsony orange affair, which clearly hit the mark and has already become the club’s best ever selling kit . Not surprisingly, there were quite a few sporting it in the stands. But not on the pitch.
As Espanyol also play in blue and white stripes. I fully expected Brighton to be in their new away kit, but I was wrong and the Spanish side ran out in all-pink.
They might have turned up in pink, but despite being unbeaten in preseason with wins over Lille and Montpellier, they never turned up at the Amex. Like Brighton, they had an issue with one of their star players. Last season’s top-scorer, Raúl de Tomás, was left out of the squad with speculation of a rift developing between him and the club amid reports of bids from Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
The game got underway without any fanfare and it took the Seagulls just 17 minutes to take the lead with an Adam Webster header.
Just after half-time Lewis Dunk — the only survivor of the team that played Atleti — headed in their second, before Leandro Trossard bagged himself a 15 minute hat-trick and the man of the match award.
Towards the end, Espanyol managed to get one back through Joselu, but they never threatened Brighton with new manager, Diego Martinez admitting: “We leave very hurt. We played a very bad game.”
Despite the 5:1 victory, the scoreline flattered Brighton who hardly looked like the team who finished 9th — their highest ever position — in the Premier League last season.
After the match, Graham Potter said: “It was a good performance, with lots of positives. We were the dominant team throughout the game.”
That said, this was hardly a challenging run out for his team. Having recently sold Yves Bissouma — one of their star men — to Spurs and not brought in anyone of note, Albion are now a weaker team. Should Cucurella also leave, which it looks like he will, they will need to significantly strengthen the squad in the next few weeks if they are to maintain their Premier League status. The Seagull’s first game of the new season sees them take on Man Utd at Old Trafford, a venue where they’ve never won.
Big thanks to Bruce Talbot, Brighton’s Media Assistant, for arranging my accreditation this year.
Behind the shot: All these images were taken handheld with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 using the M Zuiko 1.8 75mm lens from my seat in the press box Being located behind the team benches, it was quite a challenge to get shots of either manager as most of the time they had their backs to me. As I know from previous attempts, shooting a football match is far from easy. Not only do you need to pre-empt what’s happening on the pitch, but you also need to get lucky with the composition so you don’t have parts of players’ bodies in the shot that detract from the action. Perhaps the hardest thing is keeping your chosen subject in sharp focus. After the game, I managed to grab a few portraits of Graham Potter pitchside whilst he was speaking to the media. Shot at the Amex Stadium on 30 July 2022.
About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens.
On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople.
Most recently, he has written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s ‘Still Of The Night’ and Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’. He has also just penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’
All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians.
