Vote for your Brighton Team of the Decade: Right Back

In case you hadn’t heard or realised, the 2010’s are coming to an end. It’s been quite the decade for Brighton and Hove Albion with the Amex Stadium opening, two promotions and the realisation of the dream of Premier League football.

All of that success has been delivered by some excellent footballers. To recognise that fact, we’re putting together a Brighton Team of the Decade made up players selected by your votes. They’ll be lining up in the 4-4-2 of Chris Hughton’s Championship promotion season and the full team will be revealed before the clock strikes midnight to reign in the 2020’s.

Right Back

With our WAB Team of the Decade goalkeeper selected, attention now turns to right back. It’s a position that has been dominated by two Spaniards over the course of the last 10 years, who between them played for the Albion on 466 occasions.

In that time, they were both won a Player of the Season trophy. They both played pivotal roles in promotion campaigns. And they both cemented their names in Brighton history as two of the most popular players ever to pull on the shirt.

To all intents and purposes, this looks like a two-horse race. But just to keep things interesting, we’ve thrown in three more right backs to give you five to pick from. After all, you might want to instead select a madcap Chilean who missed a home game against Burnley after getting arrested that morning for driving while disqualified. Each to their own.

Inigo Calderon
When Gus Poyet was appointed as Albion boss in November 2009, something became very apparent very quickly to the Uruguayan egomaniac. If Brighton were going to play football his way, then he needed two new full backs who were comfortable on the ball to do it.

As a result, two of his first signings were Marcos Painter on the left from Swansea City and Inigo Calderon on the right. Calderon was a free agent having been released by Spanish third tier side Alaves; hardly the most glamorous of signings, even if the recruitment of a Jesus Christ look-a-like did spark some excitement.

By the time Calderon left the Albion six years later, he was so much more than a doppelganger for the son of God. He’d racked up 231 appearances, scored 19 goals, been crowned Player of the Year at the end of the 2014-15 season and was widely loved by Brighton fans everywhere. The definition of a club legend.

Gonzalo Jara
While Calderon entered the Albion history books for the right reasons, Chilean full back Gonzalo Jara joins him in there for the wrong reasons. Signed by Poyet on-loan from West Bromwich Albion in October 2011, he had two spells at the Amex over the course of the 2011-12 campaign in which he did some interesting things.

Jara missed the pre-Christmas home game with Burnley after being caught by police on the morning of the game driving an Audi Q7 sports car which had no insurance. It then became apparent that the reason it had no insurance was because Jara was meant to be serving a 17-month ban for drink driving that he’d been hit with six months previously.

When he was on the pitch rather than sat in a police cell, he was actually a very good footballer. That was shown by the fact that he later became a regular for Chile. It was while playing for his national side against Uruguay that he grabbed Luis Suarez by the testicles in a match to earn a punch in the face from Suarez. In another Chile game, Jara inserted his fingers up the arse of Edinson Cavani.

There were no such acts of disgrace while Jara was in a Brighton shirt, mores the pity. His final Brighton career record read 14 appearances, four yellow cards and one red.

Bruno
What can you say about El Capitan that hasn’t been said already? 235 appearances. Six goals. Seven years service. Player of the Season 2015-16. Only the second man after Brian Horton to captain the Albion to promotion to the top flight. Great beard. Great player. And an even better bloke. Once a Seagull, always a Seagull.

Ezequiel Schelotto
Chris Hughton had two goes at trying to find an upgrade on Bruno once we’d won promotion to the Premier League. The first of those was Ezequiel Schelotto, who at times has looked like a genuinely world class player (Chelsea at home, January 2018) and at others looked like a complete and utter cart horse (Crystal Palace away, April 2018).

Hughton wasn’t convinced, freezing the Greyhound out in the first half of the 2018-19 campaign before packing him off for a loan spell with Chievo in the second. Schelotto’s time in Italy was cut short after he picked up a serious knee injury, from which he’s only just returned after 10 months on the sidelines. Graham Potter seems to be fan though, handing Schelotto two substitute appearances since his comeback.

Martin Montoya
The second player that Hughton signed to try and replace Bruno with was another Spaniard, Martin Montoya. The £6m signing from Valencia ends the decade as Potter’s first choice right back, having started 13 out of the Albion’s 14 Premier League games so far this season.

Montoya has made 42 appearances for Brighton to date and while we over here at WeAreBrighton.com Towers like him, other Albion supporters aren’t entirely convinced.

Please vote for one right back for our Brighton Team of the Decade