Gai Assulin: When The Israeli Messi came to Brighton
Brighton were not even interested in signing Gai Assulin initially, even though he was bloody amazing on Football Manager.
Rather than ‘The Israeli Messi’, it was ‘The Next Yaya Toure’ Abdul Razak who Gus Poyet wanted to bring in on loan from Manchester City in February 2012 to bolster the Albion’s hopes of challenging for a Championship playoff place.
“We were not looking to bring in another player after Razak,” Poyet told The Argus. But then Will Hoskins surprisingly joined Sheffield United on loan just six months after Brighton had signed him from Bristol Rovers. Suddenly, the Albion had room for another forward in their squad.
“This was something that came along that I thought was very interesting. When there is something unique and unexpected like this I think it’s a no brainer,” added Poyet.
“Gai was one of the top young talents in the world four or five years ago and he was very unlucky with an injury.”
“He is still very young. He has got an incredible amount of quality and he can really make a difference, but for any young player he needs to be playing and right now at City that is very difficult.”
And so Assulin arrived for one month and Razak for three. Despite Razak genuinely looking like he could be the next Toure on his home debut against Ipswich Town, it was actually Assulin who stayed at the Amex until the end of the campaign after his loan was extended.
Razak in contrast suffered one of the most incredible losses of form ever seen from an Albion player. Seven days after looking world class against the Tractor Boys, he was totally and utterly anonymous away at Doncaster Rovers.
From there, Razak did nothing in further appearances against Cardiff City and two substitute outings in matches with Derby County and Nottingham Forest.
The Albion subsequently terminated his loan seven games early. Which did at least give us one of the more popular ex-player articles on WAB, Abdul Razak from word class to woeful in seven days.
Now, you might be thinking at this point Assulin must therefore have been the more successful loanee. In which case, think again.
Razak at least had that one very, very, very good game against Ipswich to cling onto. Assulin made just two starts and five substitute appearances, finding himself unable to jump ahead of Will Buckley, Craig Noone or Kazenga LuaLua in the wingers pecking order.
The Spring of 2012 also happened to be the time when Vicente was lighting up the Amex having managed to get himself relatively fit for a run of matches.
Might Assulin have stood a better chance of standing out had he joined the Albion at a time when the squad was not so stacked with wide players?
Anyone who played a version of Football Manager in which Assulin went from wonderkid to best player in the world would argue yes. I speak with authority here, having witnessed Assulin lead my Mansfield Town team to Champions League glory in 2020.
Poyet must have seen something in Gai Assulin too as rumours abounded that Brighton were set to offer him a permanent contract following his release by City in the summer 2012.
Either that, or the Albion were blinded by Assulin’s reputation and CV. Which was bloody impressive, admittedly. Why would you not get cock-a-hoop about ‘The Israeli Messi’ when just a few months earlier, Billy Paynter had been a marquee signing?
Assulin earned those comparisons to Messi through a long stint at the Barcelona academy. Assulin was 12-years-old when he left Israel for Spain, working his way up through the age groups before progressing to Barca’s B side for the 2007-08 campaign.
Their manager at the the time was a certain Pep Guardiola. The season ended with Barca B as champions of one of the Tercera Division regional leagues, which sat at the fourth tier of Spanish football.
Playing alongside Assulin for Barca B were the likes of Sergio Busquets, Pedro and Thiago Alcantara. And despite being one of the youngest members of the squad, Assulin contributed nine goals in 22 appearances.
With Barcelona B closing on in the title, Assulin earned his first full international cap 14 days before his 17th birthday. In doing so, he became the youngest ever player to play for Israel.
In the summer of 2008, the success of Barca B saw Guardiola promoted into the big job at Camp Nou. Guardiola was expected to take a few of the standout players with him to the senior side, including The Israeli Messi.
A knee injury scuppered that, ruling Assulin out for most of the 2008-09 season. Guardiola did give him a first team debut, playing 56 minutes against Cultural Leonesa in the Copa Del Rey in October 2009 but that was it in terms of his Barcelona career.
Barca did try and keep Assulin when his contract expired in the summer of 2010, offering him a new deal. A combination of wanting first team football and not seeing eye-to-eye with new B Team manager Luis Enrique saw Assulin instead join Manchester City.
Assulin did not get on with Roberto Mancini either. More injury problems at the Etihad Stadium meant he never made a senior appearance for City; and fitness concerns also scuppered a November 2011 loan to the Albion’s Championship rivals, Barnsley.
Unlike the Tykes, Brighton were willing to take a chance on Gai Assulin and so 10 weeks after that failed move to Oakwell, he arrived at the Amex alongside Razak.
Assulin ticked several boxes when it came to generating excitement for Brighton fans in the somewhat less enlightened early 2010s, when we were yet to become accustomed to regularly making flair signings from across the globe.
Tick one – he was from outside of Europe. Tick two – he wore coloured boots. Tick three – he had long hair. And tick four – he opted to become the first outfield player to wear the number 13 shirt since Lee Steele over a decade earlier.
Pascal Gross may now be synonymous with the number 13, but back then it was a rarity served up only by the flairest. Fingers were firmly crossed that unlike Steele, Assulin would not crash his car into a lamppost after a Christmas party.
Assulin made his Albion debut in a 0-0 draw at Hull City, replacing Razak as a 77th minute substitute. There were two more substitute appearances against Ipswich (Razak looking like a Ballon d’Or winner) and Doncaster (Razak being as useful as an inflatable dartboard) before Assulin made his first start at home to Cardiff.
Brighton were trailing 2-0 when Assulin was replaced in the 60th minute by Noone. Come full time, the Albion had salvaged a 2-2 draw thanks to goals from Ashley Barnes and Sam Vokes.
Assulin made only one further start for Brighton and that came in the disastrous 6-0 defeat at West Ham United.
Between the turnaround against the Bluebirds and the hammering at Upton Park, he popped up for a brief cameo from the bench in defeat to Reading followed by one final swansong on the last day of the season at Barnsley.
In total, The Israeli Messi played 182 minutes for the Albion. Zero goals. Zero assists. It is a bit of a surprise really that so many Brighton fans recall Gai Assulin, when his impact was on a par with the likes of Emmanuel Ledesma and Mustapha Carayol, two wingers also signed on loan three seasons later.
Take 10 points if you can remember anything about them. They certainly are not getting a 1000+ word article about their Brighton career on WAB anytime soon (or maybe they will).
It is also a bit of a surprise that Brighton considered bringing in Assulin permanently. Maybe Poyet had also enjoyed success with The Israeli Messi on Football Manager?
The move though never materialised – and to describe Assulin’s career as nomadic after leaving the Albion would be a slight understatement.
He rattled through Spain, Israel, Kazakhstan, Romania and Italy with spells at Racing Santander, Hercules, RCD Mallorca, Hapoel Tel Aviv, CE Sabadell, Kairat Almaty, ACSM Politehnica Iasi and AC Crema 1908.
Assulin even popped up in a five-a-side league in Stockport, playing matches on a pitch next to an industrial estate after moving back to the United Kingdom following Crema just missing out on promotion through the Serie D playoffs in 2021.
The Israeli Messi never found another club after that. His career ended as one of what-ifs; what if he had been less injury prone during his time at Barcelona and City, making the grade at either Camp Nou or the Etihad?
What if he had come to Brighton at a time when the Albion had less wingers or Vicente not been playing football from another planet?
And what if Football Manager had been right? If Gai Assulin could win the Champions League for Mansfield, imagine what he could have done with Brighton? Sadly, we will never know.
