UK Edition
Brighton's Florin Andone on coping with father's early death: 'If I don't fight, I can't play'
For the first time in his four years as Brighton manager, Chris Hughton has an agonising choice to make at centre-forward. Glenn Murray, the ageing saviour, fights for the right to face Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk this weekend with Florin Andone, who arrived from Romania via Spain on a path out of personal tragedy.
Adaptation was forced on Andone in boyhood when his father was killed in a road accident in his native Romania and his family relocated to Spain to start afresh. Now a regular scorer for Brighton after injury clouded his move from Deportivo La Coruna last summer, Andone, 25, is trying to make up for lost time. In his third country in 13 years, he is sustained by a role as provider for his family as he tries to succeed Murray as first-choice striker.
“I lost my father when I was 10 and I moved to Spain when I was 12,” Andone explained at Brighton’s training ground as preparations for Liverpool’s visit to the Amex Stadium intensified. “My mum met another person and this person helped us when we were in a bad moment in our life, our family. From 12-25 I was in Spain. It was the best option we had. Now I’m very happy because I can help my family, my brother. In my family I’m an important person - and for me this is the most important thing. More important than football, than everything. My girlfriend, my family, my dog.
“You can see what matters most when you have bad moments. Always my family is close with me, there for me.”
Andone needed propping up by his clan year when Deportivo were relegated and injury plagued him from March to November, when Murray remained unchallenged at the head of a 4-4-1-1 formation now modified to 4-3-3 to provide greater speed and thrust. Hughton is thus forced to decide between Andone’s greater mobility and Murray’s ace goalscoring knack.
A £5.3m purchase (his buy-out clause shrank dramatically when Deportivo went down), Andone made his Premier League debut against Everton at the start of November and scored on his first start - the winner, at Huddersfield, on 1 December, before taking the quick route to Brighton hearts with another at Crystal Palace. His goal against Bournemouth in the FA Cup last Saturday was his third in 12 appearances.
“It wasn’t the good beginning. I wanted to be fit, and have a pre-season and start in the same condition as the other strikers,” he says of his first four months in Sussex, where he carried groin and quad injuries. “But now I’m ok and I’m very hungry to have minutes. I want to have this feeling when you play - you’re important, you score goals. But it’s hard. I have good competition with Glenn. Glenn is very good as well. A very good player and a good person. I respect him a lot.”
This long hard road runs all the way back to his home in Botosani in northern Romania and the shock of being transplanted to Western Europe. “When I moved to Spain, for the first three years I didn’t play because I was a little bit depressed with the football, my life, with everything,” he says. “It was the change: the country, the school, the language. Afterwards with my brother I started to play and made fast progress.”
Andone advanced from the Villarreal academy to Atletico Balearas and then to Deportivo, his big break, after making his debut for Romania. He was leading scorer and a rising star before Deportivo fell apart 12 months later. “Less goals, less confidence, three coaches, a lot of systems, players in and out,” is how he remembers it. “It was a very difficult year.”
But relegation revived Brighton’s pursuit. Andone says: “I was very close to signing a year before [2017]. I accepted [the offer], my contract was right, the medical check was ok - everything was right. But on the last day Deportivo said - no, Florin is staying here. I couldn’t understand this was possible.” Deportivo’s attempt to buy a replacement from Monaco fell through and Andone’s move was blocked. But not for long.
“To come here was my first choice,” he says. “I had offers from other teams, and in England - three or four more - but my choice was Brighton because they wanted me last summer and in January.”
Moving to England brought another, though smaller, culture shock: “All the defenders are very big, very strong defenders, and often there are five. For strikers it’s more difficult to play here because defenders are faster, stronger; sometimes in the smaller teams we have direct football, and I’m not very tall [5ft 11inch]. It’s very hard. But it’s football. You need to take advantage in every action [opportunity.] You have to be faster or more intelligent.
“In Spain, it doesn’t matter which team it is, they try to play the ball, keep possession. Here, sometimes, this is not important. Sometimes you play direct football and the most important thing is to fight, to run, to keep going, keep going - and in the end maybe you can win. I like this football. If I don’t have contact, or I don’t fight, I can’t play. This is Florin Andone. To fight, to run, to keep going.”
Brighton fans have noticed this, and welcomed it. So now Andone may be asked to run and fight against Van Dijk, of whom he says: “I played against him with the national team. He’s very good, very strong, and fast as well. He’s one of the best in the world.”
His maiden goal against Huddersfield still excites him: “It was very very important for me, because, before this goal, I scored the last one six or seven months ago with Deportivo. Then I had my problem with the groin, the holidays, then three months more - so, [I was] injured for five or six months. Finally I got my fitness, I got everything, and when I scored my goal I thought - wow. I’m here.”