Who is Stefanos Tzimas? Brighton’s potential breakout star this season
Stefanos Tzimas faces the same challenge Fabian Hurzeler did with Brighton & Hove Albion: moving from Germany’s 2.Bundesliga to the Premier League.
The transition for Hurzeler has been relatively smooth, from a promotion-winning head coach with St. Pauli in 2023-24 to steering Brighton to an eighth-place finish last season.
The question for the 19-year-old Greek striker is whether he can translate his form and promise with mid-table Nurnberg in the German second tier to England’s top flight.
It is a big ask, but Brighton do not make many recruitment mistakes. A fee in excess of £20million ($27m) to sign Tzimas from Nurnberg at the end of the January transfer window is a measure of the confidence they have in his ability to adapt to the rise in level. As is giving him the No 9 shirt worn by Joao Pedro last season before the Brazilian’s July move to Chelsea.
Tzimas has taken small steps so far. He has not been given any minutes during the pre-season programme as things stand, giving him time to adapt to the physical demands of English football after a hamstring injury ruled him out of Nurnberg’s final eight league games from March to May.
The Greece Under-21 international served notice of his rich potential in his home country two seasons ago when he became the youngest goalscorer in PAOK’s first team, aged 17 years and 57 days. After three goals in 15 appearances in the Greek Super League for his hometown club at the start of the 2024-25 season, he joined Nurnberg on a season-long loan.
He ended up with 12 goals and three assists in 23 outings playing under manager Miroslav Klose. Tzimas could not have wished for a better teacher in the art of a No 9 than Germany’s record goalscorer (71 goals) and the record goalscorer in World Cup finals (16 goals).
The goal contributions and an unusual transfer — Nurnberg expedited a buy option with PAOK midway through the loan to then sell Tzimas — were not the only reasons he stood out during a stint in Germany that continued for the rest of last season once Brighton had clinched his signature. His maturity, both physical and mental, left a lasting impression.
“When Steph arrived, he was so willing to learn, and he has such a big mentality,” Nurnberg’s former sporting director Olaf Rebbe tells The Athletic. “I was very surprised. He looked after his nutrition himself; he knew exactly what to eat.
“He had breathing sessions to relax his muscles and extra yoga and stretching. Acting like a top professional at his age is not normal. He was very calm and focused, not like an 18-year-old boy (Tzimas turned 19 in January). And he has taken crazy steps in his football development. He learned from Miro, taking everything in.
“After six months, I realised he was a premier player, a special kind of guy. He is very young, but he wants to have success every day, working hard, knowing what to eat, how to breathe, taking extra sessions, making his first touch better.
“He is the kind of guy that, as he grows up, others around him will want to follow his example because he somehow gives positive energy. It is the whole package. The coaches said all the time that he is quite complete.
“I think he will manage it in the Premier League. The people at Brighton are smart and they know this. He is smart, he is fast, he can finish with both feet. I am 100 per cent sure that he will manage it.”
There is an extra incentive for Tzimas to make an immediate impact at Brighton in the way he did in new surroundings at Nurnberg. Tzimas and 18-year-old Brighton team-mate Charalampos Kostoulas — who arrived in July from Olympiacos in a deal worth over £30m — have been regular goalscorers at junior level for Greece from the under-16 to under-21 age groups.
Greece will fancy their chances of qualifying for next year’s World Cup finals from a group containing Scotland, Denmark and Belarus when fixtures get under way in September. A successful Nations League campaign ended with promotion earlier this year to the top group of the competition, having defeated the Scots 3-1 on aggregate in the play-offs and beating England 2-1 at Wembley in the group stage last October.
The attacking options in Greece’s senior side are spearheaded by Benfica’s Vangelis Pavlidis — scorer of both goals in the victory over England — and Como’s Anastasios Douvikas, but youth is not a barrier to selection under Ivan Jovanovic. The Serbian used Konstantinos Karetsas in both legs against Scotland, as the 17-year-old Genk midfielder became the youngest-ever Nations League goalscorer in the second game.
Stephen Kountourou, a writer and podcaster for Hellas Football, says Tzimas is not far away from a call-up to the senior side. “He is banging on the door for certain,” he says. “There is hope that he can make his way into the national team at some point soon.
“He is still young and the under-21s need a player of his calibre because, just watching him, he is a level above the players that he plays with. Brighton, long-term, have a real talent.
“The best possible place for them to go in the Premier League is Brighton because of their record of giving opportunities to young players. In terms of how he is regarded in Greece, he is one of the next big strikers for the national team.”
(Top photo: Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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