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Fabian Hürzeler is getting used to what he calls the “big hype”. After almost every game, the Brighton head coach is asked about the performance of Carlos Baleba in central midfield and the answer is always similar.
“We all know that Carlos has an impact on our game because of his physicality and his quality in possession and he proved it in an impressive way,” Hürzeler said after the Cameroon international returned from injury to inspire the comeback victory over Chelsea in the FA Cup on Saturday night. “He played very mature and we are happy to have him back.”
In Baleba’s absence, Brighton were thrashed 7-0 by Nottingham Forest a week earlier and showed how reliant they have become on the 20-year-old, who was signed from Lille as a replacement for Moisés Caicedo in August 2023. Baleba, having shown glimpses of his immense talent last season under Hürzeler’s predecessor, Roberto De Zerbi, has taken his game to another level and that has not gone unnoticed elsewhere. Brighton fended off several inquiries in January and are expecting a flurry of interest this summer from some of the Premier League’s big hitters and beyond. The price tag could exceed the £115m Chelsea paid for Caicedo.
Enzo Maresca’s side are in town again on Friday night, meaning Baleba will have another chance to shine against opponents who provided him with a first Premier League goal in September. That may not have been celebrated with the trademark backflip that Baleba has been performing since he was a winger at the prestigious École de Football des Brasseries in Douala, Cameroon, given that Brighton were 3-1 down (they went on to lose 4-2). But he was able to demonstrate the acrobatic skills in December against Fulham, albeit in another defeat.
“I don’t need to train for it, it’s in my blood,” Baleba told Onze magazine shortly after he had joined Lille in January 2022. “I’ve been doing somersaults since I was little. After my first goal, I’m going to do a direct somersault.”
The French side won the race to sign him ahead of Rennes and Atalanta after Baleba had emerged as one of the most promising young players at EF Brasseries, which has produced a string of Cameroon internationals including Samuel Eto’o, Geremi, Rigobert Song and Vincent Aboubakar since its creation in 1989. His father played professionally in South Africa before returning to Douala to become a coach at the club, although it was what Hürzeler describes as an “intrinsic motivation to always get better” that inspired Baleba as a young player.
“I lived in a hut made of planks, with my father and mother,” he has said. “In front of my door, there were truck tyres. I used them to work on my agility. I was determined to become a professional. When I watched Champions League matches on TV, I said to myself: ‘I want to play against them, rub shoulders with these players and then, I want to overtake them.’ When I go on the pitch, my mindset is to tear everything apart and destroy everything in my path. I want to be the best.”
On his arrival at Lille, Baleba played for the reserves in France’s third tier and was not allowed a mobile phone in an attempt to keep him focused. “If his parents wanted to speak to him they would have to call someone from the club and they would bring the phone to him,” says the Cameroonian journalist Njie Enow. “The goal was to keep him grounded to ensure that he wasn’t distracted. He’s had a really meteoric rise but has also had his fair share of tragedy.”
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The death of Baleba’s mother a few months before his arrival in the Premier League has added to his determination to fulfil his vast potential, and he plans to build a house in her memory. Baleba made only 21 appearances in Ligue 1 before being bought by Brighton for up to €30m amid interest from Liverpool and other suitors. Whereas Caicedo was loaned to the Belgian club Beerschot after arriving from Ecuador, Baleba was thrown into the deep end by De Zerbi and excelled on his first start – a 2-2 draw against Liverpool in October 2023. Brighton’s chief executive, Paul Barber, believes that mastering English and having a supportive network have been the key factors in Baleba’s rapid progress.
“With Carlos, you’ve got a young guy who’s living a very different life to what he was used to in Cameroon,” he says. “He’s got some people around him that can support him and he can trust them. Making sure his language skills were up to the right level was very important because so many young players that come from different parts of the world, it’s not actually settling into the UK or playing football in a different country that’s the problem; it’s language. And if you can’t communicate, you can’t settle, you can’t tell someone that you’re sad, or you can’t tell someone that you are struggling.”
Enow says: “A guy like Baleba needs trust and confidence and the people around him have created an environment where he is able to thrive. For us in Cameroon it’s really exciting because we have a crop of younger players coming up and I think Baleba will be the face of the next generation.”
