Diego Gomez has been well prepared for his entry to the Premier League with Brighton & Hove Albion.
The Paraguay international midfielder officially becomes a Brighton player on January 1, when the winter transfer window opens, following an £11million ($13.9m) move from Inter Miami. He will be available to make his debut when Arsenal visit the Amex Stadium on January 4.
By then, the settling-in period for Gomez will stretch to three weeks. He was introduced to the Amex crowd before the home game against rivals Crystal Palace in mid-December, after Brighton and Inter Miami had announced the deal on their official channels.
Gomez registered 13 goal involvements in 28 outings for Inter Miami in 2024 (six goals and seven assists) playing in the same team as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. But what will he bring to Fabian Hurzeler’s side in the second half of the season as they try to qualify for Europe?
Adapting to a new league in a new country can be challenging for overseas signings. Gomez has an advantage in making the transition mid-season, as he is joining forces with close friend Julio Enciso in the Brighton dressing room.
Enciso was on hand to greet Gomez in the gym on his tour of Brighton’s training centre in Lancing. Enciso is a current international team-mate with Paraguay and a former club colleague in their homeland. The versatile forward signed for Brighton from Club Libertad in 2022.
Gomez starred in Libertad’s academy, playing with Enciso as 14-year-olds. He joined the club based in the capital city of Asuncion after playing for local teams in San Juan Bautista, his home town a further 125 miles south, where he helped out on the family farm.
He was top scorer for Libertad’s under-15s. An anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained in 2019 did not adversely impact on his progress. He made his first-team debut in May 2022 at the age of 19, his senior international debut four months later in a 1-0 win over Mexico in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gomez helped Libertad to two domestic league titles in two years, leading the league stats for shots, dribbles and ball-carrying in his final season, before Inter Miami snapped him up in July 2023 on a contract until 2026, with an option of a further year.
Gomez will officially be a Brighton player from January 1 (Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
But in the end, he was only in Florida for 18 months. Now he is a Premier League player.
Hurzeler stated at his press conference before the 3-1 home defeat by rivals Palace that Gomez will be in contention immediately in January.
“He has the right attitude towards football,” Hurzeler said. “He loves to play. You can feel his passion in every talk with him. Also, when you see him playing for Paraguay, when you see him playing for Inter Miami, you see that he’s ready to sprint, ready to make the last step, ready to give everything for his club.
“And that’s something we need here. Having players with a passion for football, with the right attitude, working to improve and get better every day. That’s something that he has inside of him and that’s special for such a young player.”
Hurzeler will factor into his selection process that Gomez last kicked a ball on November 10, playing the full 90 minutes in Inter Miami’s surprise 3-2 home defeat by Atlanta United in the MLS play-offs.
“We have seen some examples already in the summer how challenging it is to come from a different league to the Premier League to adapt,” Hurzeler said. “It takes time. Sometimes it goes a bit faster. Sometimes it goes a little bit slower but it’s up to us and the club and the team to fully educate him as quick as possible. What I experienced so far is that we will get a player and a person who is very open-minded and wants to integrate quickly.”
Off the pitch, Gomez can best be described as shy and humble. He’s soft-spoken, almost awkward when he talks to reporters. Even though he didn’t need a translator during his media availability sessions in Miami (Spanish is the dominant language at Inter Miami’s training ground), reporters would have to get as close as possible to record the young Paraguayan’s whispers.
Away from the cameras and microphones, though, Gomez was hardworking and brave. Despite the presence of Messi, Suarez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets — all hugely successful players with Barcelona — it was Gomez who Inter Miami’s then-manager Tata Martino singled out as the standard-setter in training. For Martino, Gomez represented what football is truly about: fleeting opportunities. Gomez trained like his next meal depended on it.
Failure at the professional level could have the potential to create a domino effect that would impact the player and his entire family. Success could dramatically change the lives of Gomez’s loved ones. Inter Miami, with Martino in charge, was the ideal first step for Gomez, a player who had never left home until he boarded a flight to the United States in the summer of 2023.
Tata Martino says Gomez “needed to open himself up to the world” (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
Martino had personally recruited him, using the credibility he possessed as a former Paraguay national team manager. In 2010, Martino, an Argentine, led Paraguay to the 2010 World Cup quarterfinals. “(Martino’s) the one who brought me here,” Gómez told reporters in Fort Lauderdale in July of 2023. “He told me to play vertically and to go to goal.”
And that he did, although to start, Gomez was shaky and nervous. He played a bit too fast, and his final ball was lacking, a detail that earned him a few stern stares from Messi on match day. Gomez gradually began to settle. He began to grasp Martino’s possession-heavy tactics and the manager’s counter-pressing demands. As Gomez became more comfortable in MLS and less shy around Miami’s star players, his output and final product drastically improved.
His numbers don’t jump out. In 24 regular season matches with Miami, Gomez scored four goals and added seven assists. But when those passes were going to Messi and Suarez, the quality from Gomez was evident. In 2024, he truly shined. Gomez was cleaner on the ball and the game seemed to slow down for him.
When he wanted to turn on and race past a full-back, Gomez looked like a dual-threat midfielder with high-end potential. His form continued with Paraguay’s senior national team, where he became a regular in his country’s starting XI for World Cup qualifying.
“The Diego Gomez from last July is nothing compared to the Diego Gomez from today,” Martino told The Athletic in August. “What he needed was to open himself up to the world. It would’ve been much more difficult for him to go from Libertad to Brighton rather than from Inter Miami to Brighton. He needed to leave his comfort zone, his people who have taken care of him and supported him.
“Something that was always a concern for us was the fact that we wanted him to stay with us for the entire season,” Martino continued. “Mainly because if not, he wouldn’t have ever completed an entire season with us. And also because he needs to complete his development, especially on the personal side of things. This was his first stop away from Paraguay and it was very important for him to stay six more months with us.”
Gomez had to learn a new language and “cook for himself,” Martino added. When visa delays prevented his family from visiting him in Miami in 2023, Gomez dealt with the solitude that can consume an international player in a foreign league.
It gave him a thicker skin and he began to handle the pressure that comes with playing alongside a World Cup-winning captain like Messi. He became more confident in the post-match mixed zone, as well, and he deflected any praise that came his way.
Playing with Messi helped Gomez learn to handle pressure (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
“Now you can see how Diego’s standing among the team has shifted,” Martino said. “Right now he’s in a privileged position within the group.”
Gomez epitomizes what MLS wants to be on a consistent basis. He arrived in the U.S. with potential, fulfilled it and was acquired by a European side in a top-five league. He’s now staring success directly in the face. The timid 20-year-old who couldn’t cook himself a meal is now a reliable senior international and Premier League signing. In early December, he bought his parents a new home in Paraguay.
At the time of this conversation, Gomez’s move to Brighton had not been finalised. It was nearing completion, though, and Martino voiced his approval.
“If it would’ve been a club in Spain or Italy he would’ve gone, as well,” Martino said. “If the Brighton deal is confirmed, and this is my own personal opinion, I believe it’s the right team and the right league for Diego. If I had to choose a better alternative for him I don’t think I’d have one. Brighton have a new manager. He’s young and I think all those things will be good for Diego. And if he finishes this season with us, he’ll have been abroad for over a year, learning a new language. He’ll be much more prepared.”
Gomez faces plenty of competition for a place at Brighton. His arrival continues an extensive overhaul in midfield since the sales during the summer 2023 transfer window of Moises Caicedo to Chelsea for a British record £115m and Alexis Mac Allister to Liverpool for an initial fee of £35m.
Cameroon international Carlos Baleba, signed a fortnight after Caicedo’s departure from French club Lille for £26m, has shone this season under Hurzeler. So too has Sweden international Yasin Ayari, who arrived in the January 2023 window from AIK for around £5m.
Jack Hinshelwood has switched to his preferred position in central midfield after making a first-team breakthrough last season at right-back. The 19-year-old England Under-21 player has thrived and been tipped for senior international honours by Hurzeler.
The exits of Pascal Gross (Borussia Dortmund), Billy Gilmour (Napoli) and Mahmoud Dahoud (Eintracht Frankfurt) during the summer came amid a near-£200m splash on nine new arrivals, featuring more midfield strengthening.
Matt O’Riley, a £25m summer signing from Celtic, is another player in the mix in the centre of the park after recovering from ankle ligament damage on his debut, which ruled out the 24-year-old Danish international between August and November.
Then there is Mats Wieffer, another £25m summer buy from Feyenoord. The 25-year-old Dutch international has yet to hit top form, but is highly rated by Hurzeler.
Further competition is provided on the margins by Poland international Jakub Moder and versatile veteran James Milner, who made early-season appearances in midfield until suffering hamstring damage at Arsenal at the end of August.
So, where does Gomez fit in? Primarily a box-to-box midfielder with a relentless engine and combative instincts, Gomez demonstrated his eye for goal with a spectacular effort past Alisson to earn Paraguay their first victory over Brazil in 16 years in a World Cup qualifier in October.
DIEGO GOMEZ SCORES A BANGER TO LIFT PARAGUAY OVER BRAZIL! 🇵🇾
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 11, 2024
Gomez loves playing for his country, having made his senior debut two years ago. He captained them to the quarter-finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics and he was in tears when the national anthem was played before last year’s opening fixture in World Cup qualifying against Peru.
Hurzeler believes the passion of Gomez will be the biggest benefit of all to Brighton. “The main thing is the passion he has , the energy he brings on the pitch,” Hurzeler said. “How he goes into personal duels. That is something that will help him to adapt to the intensity of the Premier League.
“It’s about being ruthless in the personal duels, winning them. I think he has all basic things to be prepared for that. That’s the main thing he will bring to the team.”
(Top photo: James Boardman/BHAFC)
