Most footballers like to spend their summers unwinding after a long season but not Pascal Gross. Having been part of the Germany squad eliminated in the quarter-finals of Euro 2024, the midfielder entered – and won – a running race.
Gross completed the 8.4km course on Juist, in the East Frisian islands, in 31 minutes and 35 seconds. He is not known as someone who courts attention, and his victory by more than a minute came to light only when a video was posted on social media by a competitor.
Gross was moving from Brighton to Borussia Dortmund after seven years in the Premier League and reported to his boyhood club for pre-season training days later. Running is an obsession for Gross, as it is for his former teammate James Milner, who revealed last month he was training for a marathon after finally hanging up his boots, and that has shown since he returned for a second spell at the Amex in January for a bargain £1.2m.
“I think he’s looking in his free time now: ‘Where can I run a race?’ because he will never stand still,” joked Brighton’s manager, Fabian Hürzeler, after the 35-year-old scored the opening goal in a 3-0 victory over Arsenal last month. “ During the off season he’s never the person who can lay on the beach for several hours and do nothing. He always needs to do something.”
Given that Gross has this season racked up an average distance of more than 11.5km per match and has covered the third-most ground of any player in the Premier League, it is no surprise Hürzeler has compared his compatriot to a good wine: “The older the wine gets, the better it gets.”
That analysis is borne out by the rest of his statistics this season as Brighton have emerged as challengers for Champions League qualification, at the very least, before Sunday’s game at Liverpool. Not only has Gross, the Premier League’s player of the month for September, contributed a combined seven goals and assists, he is in the top five for several other metrics such as big chances created (six), chances created from open play (14) and line-breaking passes leading to a goal (three). In a team who have scored the fourth-most goals (23) in Premier League history after seven games, Gross has been the standout performer.
“Sometimes he’s just one step ahead than his opponent,” said Hürzeler, who is understood to have been instrumental in bringing back Gross. “He might not be the quickest player, but he can be the quickest in the head and sometimes being the quickest in the head is very helpful. No one expected that it would be this good. But it also shows that he still has this capacity in his body.”
At a club where experience is valued despite Hürzeler being the youngest permanent manager in the Premier League’s history, insiders describe Gross as the perfect role model for some of Brighton’s younger players. Charalampos Kostoulas has scored three goals in his past four league matches and the 19-year-old Greece striker is clearly thriving alongside the man who is approaching 300 appearances for the club. Diego Gómez, the dynamic Paraguayan who scored a goal-of-the-season contender against Crystal Palace that will go down in Brighton folklore, the homegrown talent Jack Hinshelwood and the midfield linchpin Yasin Ayari are others benefiting from his vast experience, as is Hürzeler.
Gross managed 75 Brighton goals and assists after joining from Ingolstadt in 2017 in the summer when Brighton were promoted. His departure for Dortmund, a year after his first Germany cap, was to fulfil a boyhood dream but there was always something drawing Gross – who wears a long-sleeve shirt owing to a grass allergy – back to the club where he is known as the Kaiser.
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“It was really difficult,” Gross said of his Brighton exit. “Only something really special got me out of here. There were a couple of other options [before returning], but Brighton was always the priority. I just stayed in touch with all the lads over the time away. Maybe you watch less of the games or you don’t stay in touch as much any more, it gets less and less. But it never really did.”
Gross retiring from international football after the World Cup has also been to Brighton’s benefit. His status as a club legend was augmented by delivering the free-kick that Palace’s Jaydee Canvot headed into his own net during the 5-0 humiliation on Sunday. That was the third game in a row in which Gross has provided an assist and he has an opportunity to become the oldest player to make it four since Chelsea’s Gianfranco Zola in December 2002.
The trip to Anfield continues a gruelling run of five away fixtures in a row. Brighton drew at the Czech club Jablonec on Thursday in the Conference League and after Sunday they go to Manchester City twice in four days – the first in the Carabao Cup – before heading to Spain to play Getafe. It will test Brighton’s mettle after their spectacular start. Hürzeler can count on Gross – who has started every game in all competitions – to last the course.
