Open a Estrella, Brighton have signed Marc Cucurella

The transfer that feels like it has been dragging on since the abdication crisis of 1936 has finally been completed. Brighton have met the £15 million release clause in the contract of Getafe left wing back Marc Cucurella, who has signed a five-year deal with the Seagulls.

Cucurella came through the ranks at Barcelona and although he only made one senior appearance for the Catalan giants in the Copa Del Rey, they are entitled to a percentage of the fee that Getafe will receive.

Who knows, if the Albion had not spent so long faffing around and activated the release clause months ago then Barca may have been able to cobble together enough cents to afford keeping Lionel Messi at Camp Nou.

Imagine that… the Albion being responsible for the greatest player of all time having to spend the final years of his career in a farmers league at Paris Saint Germain.

Cucurella’s transfer history is pretty fascinating if you are into such geeky things. He spent the 2018-19 season on loan at Eibar, playing 32 times and doing enough to convince the wonderfully-nicknamed Gunsmiths to exercise their right-to-buy, making Cucurella a permanent Eibar player for £1.8 million.

Barcelona meanwhile had inserted their own buyback clause in the original loan and right-to-buy deal. They exercised this 16 days later and so Cucurella was heading back to Barca for £3.6 million, only to be loaned straight out to Getafe for the 2019-20 season.

Again, Cucurella impressed and in the summer of 2020 Getafe triggered their buy-out clause at £9 million. The lesson we can take from all of this is that Spanish transfers are bloody weird.

In his two seasons with Getafe, Cucurella played 86 times in all competitions. He scored four goals and claimed eight assists having been primarily used as an orthodox left winger.

Brighton were first linked with Marc Cucurella at the start of the summer, since when it has always been known that Getafe would have to say yes to a bid of £15 million.

The reason it has taken the best part of three months for Brighton to trigger the clause is because of how Getafe wanted a deal structured. Getafe were after large proportion of the fee upfront whilst the Albion wanted to delay the payment over instalments.

In the time that all this haggling has been going, Cucurella went to the Olympics with Spain and came back from Japan with a silver medal for his efforts.

Prior to becoming an Olympian, Cucurella had won 11 caps for Spain’s Under 21s. He has been in and around the senior squad since November 2020, earning his only cap so far in a 4-0 friendly win over Lithuania just prior to Euro 2020 (in 2021) when half of Luis Enrique’s squad were forced into isolation.

Whilst most of Cucurella’s career has been spent as a winger, he can also do a job as a left wing back. Quality in wide areas is where Graham Potter’s squad is severely lacking, as we saw during Brighton 0-2 Everton at the weekend.

With the Albion’s only two natural wide players in Tariq Lamptey and Solly March ruled out through injury, Potter selected Pascal Gross and Jakub Moder to fulfil the wing back roles.

Rafa Benitez meanwhile sent Everton out in a 4-4-2 with two out-and-out wingers. Gross and Moder did not stand much of a chance against Demarai Gray and Andros Townsend, the result being that both of the Toffees goals came from out wide.

Cucurella will do a lot to address those problems. Although he has never played anywhere other than down the left in his career – an unusually non-versatile signing for Potter – his presence will mean March can be deployed on the right all the while Lamptey remains on the shelf.

Suddenly, Brighton have two natural wide men playing as wing backs. Wily managers like Benitez who have spotted the obvious defensive weaknesses brought about by Potter using central midfielders there have one less frailty in the Albion to exploit.

At 23, Marc Cucurella comes with resale value for Brighton should he live up to the expectations that pundits in Spain seem to have for him.

Chelsea were rumoured to be interested and Barcelona were also said to be considering signing him for a third time, probably to just loan him somewhere else. The fact that Barca can not even afford a copy of Take a Break magazine at the moment scuppered their plays, anyway.

Other Premier League interest came from Burnley. Cucurella decided very quickly that a move to the 19th century was not for him when he realised that any future children he had would need to take up employment as chimney sweeps on their sixth birthday.

Cucurella’s Sideshow Bob style haircut will also ensure that the barbering economy in Brighton & Hove remains healthy. What is not to like about this deal? Time to crack open an Estrella (or a Stella) and celebrate Cucurella.