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EPL Fabian Hurzeler’s route to becoming Brighton & Hove Albion head coach involved a trip to the away fans’ section at Selhurst Park. Being in among the Brighton supporters for the 1-1 draw with bitter rivals Crystal Palace in south London just under a year ago gave Hurzeler, then in charge at German second-division side St Pauli, a feel for the extra focus on the sides meeting again at the Amex Stadium on Sunday. Advertisement Hurzeler attended that match as part of a fact-finding mission during the winter break in 2. Bundesliga last season. The 31-year-old went on to steer Hamburg-based St Pauli to promotion as champions. He had no inkling as he watched Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton side that he would end up replacing the Italian seven months later but it gave him an idea of what it will be like to be directly involved in the fixture for the first time. Speaking to a fans’ forum at the Amex in August, Hurzeler said: “I was standing with you and supporting the Brighton team, because I was there as a fan during my holidays in winter. I really experienced the rivalry. “I love these games, if everything stays without violence — that is the most important thing for me, that everything is with respect. Of course, there will be a big meaning, but in the end it is just football and just three points and we should take care of each other. ” The rivalry between the clubs, one in south London and the other 45 miles away on the south coast, began in the 1970s in the third tier of English football due to a feud between Brighton’s manager at the time Alan Mullery and Terry Venables, his Palace counterpart and a former Tottenham Hotspur team-mate, and has sometimes spilled over into crowd trouble. A handful of arrests were made as opposing fans clashed at a goalless draw at the Amex in November 2017 and also at Brighton’s 4-1 home win over Palace in February. The stalemate he watched at Selhurst Park six weeks earlier gave Hurzeler a glimpse of the bulk of the squad now in his care. Pascal Gross and Billy Gilmour are the only players no longer at the club who were in De Zerbi’s starting line-up that pre-Christmas Thursday night, following the midfield pair’s respective summer moves to Borussia Dortmund and Napoli. Advertisement Palace’s goal by Jordan Ayew just before half-time stemmed from goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen gifting possession to Michael Olise. It had echoes of Brighton’s recent 3-1 defeat away to Fulham, where the Dutch international keeper’s misplaced pass set Alex Iwobi up to give the home side an early lead. Danny Welbeck, who equalised with an 82nd-minute header as a second-half substitute in the draw at Palace last season, is in the best scoring form of his career under Hurzeler. The 34-year-old former England international, with six goals in 14 Premier League appearances this season, is one away from matching Gross as the club’s record Premier League scorer with 30. Hurzeler’s outing as a spectator was driven by special interest in the way Brighton played under De Zerbi. Australia international midfielder Jackson Irvine, who captained St Pauli under him, told The Athletic back in the summer:   “We watched a lot of other football (at St Pauli). We were always analysing different ways of playing, and Brighton were a part of that. There were teams that seemed to continuously pop up in video analysis and Brighton’s build-up was one of the ones we watched the most. When it came to defending against the ball, we watched a lot of Arsenal and Manchester City, but for building up from deep and opening from goal kicks, we used analysis of Brighton. ” Hurzeler also watched matches involving Manchester City and Arsenal during that trip to England, as well as training sessions at Brighton and Tottenham, the latter set up by Irvine, who played for their head coach Ange Postecoglou in his days as Australia manager. Speaking at his press conference before the teams’ October game at the Amex, where Brighton beat Spurs 3-2 after being two goals down at half-time, Postecoglou said of Hurzeler: “He asked a hell of a lot of questions — and I gave him too many answers, that’s for sure. I actually palmed him off at one stage, because he was asking me too many. I gave him to one of the other coaches. You could tell he’s a real student of the game, he wanted so much knowledge. ” Hurzeler’s drive to learn also meant poring over the methods of coaches working in his homeland, including Sunday’s counterpart Oliver Glasner when the Austrian was in charge of Eintracht Frankfurt before taking over from Roy Hodgson at Palace at the end of February. “Last season, (eventual Bundesliga champions) Leverkusen played amazing football, ” Hurzeler said. “Stuttgart (who were runners-up to Leverkusen), I liked to watch. In the Premier League, of course, Arsenal, (Manchester) City, but also smaller teams. For example, Urs Fischer at Union Berlin, when he really created success with his team. I watched them a lot. I watched Glasner a lot when he was the coach of Frankfurt. ” (Dr Florian Pfab, Hurzeler’s head of medicine at Brighton, has first-hand experience of working with Glasner at the latter club. ) Advertisement Hurzeler is already highly regarded among the Brighton fanbase, having steered their team to seventh place after the 15 league games so far, despite a blip in the past three which has produced only two points against bottom club Southampton, mid-table Fulham and Leicester, who are 16th. Brighton are 11 points and 10 places above Glasner’s Palace, continuing the trend of their ascendency in the rivalry. An unbeaten run for Brighton over the past six Premier League meetings between the clubs includes two wins (the rest have all finished 1-1). If Hurzeler adds another victory on Sunday, it will fuel further his standing with supporters. To do that, he’ll need to reverse the trend of results he had with St Pauli against Hamburg in their big derby fixture (the clubs’ home stadiums are less than five miles from each other) — Hurzeler suffered two defeats away to Hamburg (4-3 and 1-0) and a 2-2 draw at home during his season and a half in charge. The last Brighton manager to win his first match against Palace was Mark Mc Ghee in the 2005-06 Championship, a 1-0 victory at Selhurst Park. Mc Ghee, who played in the Old Firm derby for Celtic against Glasgow rivals Rangers and the Tyne-Wear derby for Newcastle United against Sunderland, tells The Athletic: “I loved those games, so when the (Palace) game came around it was one of the games that I wanted. “I always think, as a manager and as a player, there is an edge to be gained by embracing that — the fear element. You don’t want to lose that game, because there is more at stake than just three points. So, I was very aware of the importance of it. “As a manager, you are trying to build your reputation with the supporters, and one of the situations to do that is local derbies. ” (Top photo: Dan Istitene/Getty Images) Get all-access to exclusive stories. Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us. Andy Naylor worked for 32. 5 years on the sports desk of The Argus, Brighton’s daily newspaper. For the last 25 of those years he was chief sports reporter, primarily responsible for coverage of Brighton and Hove Albion FC. Follow Andy on Twitter @Andy Naylor BHAFC