Mainz manager Bo Svensson being eyed up by Brighton
Manager 673 to be linked with the vacant job of Brighton head coach is current Mainz boss Bo Svensson, who had taken the Bundesliga by storm since his appointment in January 2021.
There appears to be good reason to trust that Svensson is a genuine candidate. He is a name that had been scarcely mentioned before The Athletic revealed that he was on the Albion’s shortlist.
You do not get more of a reliable source than Andy Naylor, so if he is breaking the news you can be pretty certain it is accurate.
Interest is one thing. Prising Svensson from the Carnival Club (another cracking nickname) is quite another. Mainz is his team. He made 291 appearances over a seven-year spell as a player between 2007 and 2014.
Upon retirement, Svensson remained with the Carnival Club to become a youth coach. In 2017, he took over their Under 19s.
A first senior coaching role beckoned when Austrian second tier side FC Liefering gave him an opportunity in 2019.
As a feeder team to Red Bull Salzburg, FC Liefering are not eligible for promotion to the top division. Svensson oversaw a third place finish in his one full season in charge.
He had them in second spot when Mainz came calling in January 2021. The chance to manage the club he had such an affinity with was too good an opportunity to turn down and so after two years away learning the trade of first team management in Austria, Svensson returned to the MEWA Arena.
For 15 years now, Mainz has been something of a factory churning out world-class managers. First came Jurgen Klopp. Then Thomas Tuchel.
Svensson played under both those Champions League winning coaches during their time with the 05ers. He is on record as saying that he would not be where he is today had he not been lucky enough to learn from two of the best coaches of their generations.
But now – at the risk of going all Star Wars on you – the apprentice is becoming the master. Klopp averaged 1.13 points per game as Mainz manager. Tuchel 1.41. Svensson eclipses both, earning 1.56 points per game.
What makes that number most remarkable is the mess that Mainz were in when he arrived. He was the Carnival Club’s third permanent manager of the 2020-21 season before the campaign had even reached its halfway point.
By the time the Bundesliga was 17 games old, Mainz were second from bottom and had just seven points on the board. No club in the competition’s history had ever avoided relegation from such a low points tally at the midway stage.
They started the second half of the campaign with a surprise 3-2 home win over high-flying RB Leipzig. That set the tone for the rest of the season.
The Carnival Club collected 32 points, losing only three matches and storming up the table from 17th to a final finishing position of 12th. They even beat Bayern Munich 2-1 on a day when Bayern could have been crowned champions.
Mainz built on that by finishing eighth in 2021-22. With six games of 2022-23 played, they are sixth. Svensson has transformed them from a side who looked doomed to relegation from the Bundesliga into one eyeing up European qualification.
Under his management, they have claimed famous wins over Bayern, Leipzig and the other big clubs of German football. Svensson also holds the record for the best half-season in Mainz history with that unstoppable run shortly after he took over in 2020-21.
How did he do it? Mainz were terribly defensively when Svensson arrived, so task number one was to tighten up at the back.
He introduced a back three which saw the Carnival Club go from conceding an average of 2.2 goals per game to 1.25.
The 25 that Mainz shipped in his 20 games in charge in 2020-21 was the same as Bayern and Leipzig over the same period. Only Wolfsburg on 22 let in fewer.
As a 3-4-1-2 devotee, Svensson favours a setup similar to Potter. That would make him a good fit for this Albion squad, with its pool of dangers wing backs and its strength in the centre of defence provided by Lewis Dunk, Joel Veltman and Adam Webster.
There are two particularly interesting things about Bo Svensson from a Brighton point of view. One is what happened attacking wise when he took over at Mainz.
Prior to Svensson’s appointment, Mainz had xG numbers that would make even the Albion shudder. They were underperforming their expected goals by 7.3 and had created better scoring opportunities than Bayer Leverkusen in third.
Brighton sitting precariously above the relegation zone in 2020-21 whilst having an expected points total that was good enough to have them fourth was a cheeky joint for medicinal purposes compared to Mainz’s crack cocaine of an xG problem.
And yet Svensson sorted it. The Carnival Club started taking their chances. Combined with a much tighter defence, they have been flying ever since.
If Svensson could have a similar impact on helping the Albion’s goal total match their xG, then he might just be the perfect candidate to build on the foundations put in place by Potter.
So far, so good. What then I hear you cry is the other interesting aspect about Svensson? The answer to that is the amount of possession Mainz have had since his appointment. The numbers are so low that Potter would probably be violently sick on the spot if he saw them.
The Carnival Club average less than 50 percent possession, the third lowest total of any club in the Bundesliga. Svensson focusses more on what his players do with the ball, rather than how much of it they have.
Mainz press relentlessly in an attempt to win back possession. When they have it, they look to attack quickly on the counter. That such gegenpressing tactics are deployed by a manager who played under Klopp should come as no surprise.
It would though be a different approach to Potter during most of his reign at the Amex. And that is where things get really interesting. Brighton have thrived since mid-April when Potter became less possession-obsessed.
The Albion started having less of the ball and playing longer passes. It caught out Erik ten Hag so much on the opening day of the season that the new Manchester United boss felt compelled to bring it up in his post-match press conference as an excuse for losing his Old Trafford debut 2-1.
Playing in such a manner seems to suit this Seagulls squad. Counter attacking, effective football is the modus operandi of Bo Svensson and it looks ideal for Brighton.
So too his 3-4-1-2 formation. And if he can make the existing squad more clinical as he did with the Carnival Club, then the potential is scary.
The final question then. Could the Albion tempt Svensson to leave Mainz – the club of his heart – to become the next manager of Brighton? That will depend on how much money Bloom is willing to wave under his nose.
Svensson is the Mainz equivalent of Bruno. And if Bruno can be bought by Chelsea, then it will give Brighton hope they can bring in Bo Svensson.
