Como's president wants Barcelona's football and Brighton's recruitment model
Mirwan Suwarso explains how Como are building a club identity around possession and pressing while chasing value in the transfer market, days after a 9-1 win over Lens.
Como's rise this season is being built on two separate ideas, and the club's president wants both to outlast any single coach.
Mirwan Suwarso told TNT Sports commentator Adam Summerton that Como aim to play like Barcelona while recruiting like Brighton and Brentford, Football Italia reported.
The comments came days after Como beat Lens 9-1, the biggest win by an Italian club in Champions League history.
Why identity matters more than the coach
Suwarso was clear that style of play is not meant to depend on who is in the dugout.
"If you're talking about recruitment, obviously Brighton and Brentford have become the model everybody looks at," he said. "But we start from the DNA. What is our football? How do we want to play? So that it remains to be as such, even long after many changes in coaching positions."
That is a specific ambition: a possession-based identity, built around a high press, designed to survive turnover in the technical staff rather than be redefined by it.
Suwarso described the target explicitly. "In terms of football DNA, we want to become like Barcelona," he said. "We want to have that focus on wanting to have the ball, high pressing, possession, which is attractive football."
Pairing that with a Brighton-style recruitment model means hunting for undervalued players who fit a defined system rather than chasing the biggest available name.
Suwarso put it this way: "At the same time, we're trying to find undervalued players we can fit into the unit using the same models as Brighton or Brentford have done."
That is the Moneyball logic that turned Brighton and Brentford into fixtures in Europe despite limited spending power: find market inefficiencies, then develop players inside a settled system of play.
For Como, owned by the Hartono brothers since a Serie D takeover seven years ago, the approach has already produced rapid progression.
Cesc Fabregas joined as a player in 2022 and has since become head coach, taking the club into the Champions League.
His side sit fourth in Serie A on 23 points and can leapfrog champions Inter with victory at San Siro on Sunday, kicking off at 18:00 CET.
A club selling its own method
Suwarso also revealed that Como are monetising the ideas behind that project rather than keeping them in-house.
"The ideas that work, we are now starting to export them to offer them as services or as products to other clubs, because the revenue from one club is limited," he said.
He added that Como are currently working with 27 clubs, calling the approach scalable.
That detail reframes Como less as a single ambitious project and more as a consultancy with a first-team shop window, where results on the pitch double as proof of concept for a wider business.
Serie A's cycle, according to Suwarso
Asked whether Serie A can close the gap to the Premier League, Suwarso pointed to the cyclical nature of leagues rather than a permanent hierarchy.
"Time. I think we need time," he said. "I do believe every product, just like every economy, is cyclical. The Premier League may be at the top right now, but Serie A was as well."
He argued the gap is already narrowing in style if not yet in standing. "The teams are becoming more attacking," he said. "So many young players, so many exciting, offensive players, without anyone probably doing it on purpose."
Suwarso pushed back on the external perception of Italian football, arguing coverage understates how cooperative clubs actually are with one another.
"I think in Italy, what makes it to the media is not a true reflection of the reality," he said. "The reality is actually very collaborative, and we are all trying to grow because we all have the same goal."
Whatever the broader league picture, Como's own test comes immediately. A win at San Siro on Sunday would put Fabregas's side above the champions, a measurable result against which Suwarso's stated model of possession, pressing and shrewd recruitment will be judged.