Brighton’s shrewd recruitment has set up Chelsea’s success — but they risk making the same mistake

One of the more famous headlines after Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit combined for the third goal in Brazil’s defeat at the Stade de France in 1998 was “Arsenal win the World Cup”. Perhaps some in Sussex will be tempted to script a sequel on Sunday. “Brighton win the Club World Cup”? It would have sounded especially unlikely in the 1990s, when they were battling relegation from the Football League or exiled to play their home games in Gillingham.

It wouldn’t be strictly true now but Chelsea’s two goals in the semi-final came from Joao Pedro, who started July as a Brighton and Hove Albion player. He has made an increasingly familiar journey. The joke, if not a particularly new one, is that it would have been cheaper for Chelsea simply to buy Brighton than to carry on paying them for personnel. At £115m, Moises Caicedo cost a British record fee. At £62.5m, Marc Cucurella is another of Albion’s three biggest ever sales: all were to Chelsea.