Mitoma received a Porsche for his monthly prize in Brighton

Mitoma has been in high form since the beginning of the season, scoring one and assisting three goals, helping Brighton win nine points through the opening four rounds of the Premier League. In particular, the Japanese wing striker scored a solo masterpiece from the middle of the field, broke through into the middle, glided past four players and scored in the 4-1 win over Wolves in round two on August 19.

Therefore, Mitoma was elected Brighton's Best Player of August, and received a reward of a Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo with prices ranging from 100,000 USD to 190,000 USD on September 11. But the owner of Brighton's Player of the Month title can only drive this car for 48 hours. This is a cooperation agreement between Porsche Center Mid-Sussex and Brighton from the 2015-2016 season.

On social networks, many Chelsea fans joked that Brighton used the transfer money from the sale of Caicedo to sponsor the best player of the month award. This summer, Brighton sold Caicedo to Chelsea for a total cost of 146 million USD, including 127 million USD fixed and 19 million USD in additional fees depending on individual performance. The Ecuadorian midfielder thereby became the most expensive player in English football history, breaking the old record of 137 million USD that Arsenal spent to buy midfielder Delcan Rice from West Ham in mid-July.

"Brighton used money from the sale of Caicedo to sponsor the best player of the month award. What have we done?", a Chelsea fan wrote on X - a social network renamed from Twitter. "Porsche is worth more than 1 million USD, Caicedo is nearly 150 million USD, Brighton still has a lot of money," another person commented happily.

Caicedo is not the only Brighton member to come to Chelsea over the past year. This summer, goalkeeper Robert Sanchez arrived at Stamford Bridge for $25 million. Last year, "The Blues" even spent nearly 100 million USD to bring in defender Marc Cucurella and coach Graham Potter. But both of these deals failed, when Potter was fired after only six months and Cucurella lost his official position this season.

Brighton is a phenomenon in the Premier League, finishing sixth last season to participate in the Europa League, thereby qualifying for the European Cup for the first time in its 121-year history. This summer, they recruited Joao Pedro, Mahmoud Dahoud, James Milner, Bart Verbruggen, Igor Julio, Carlos Baleba and borrowed Ansu Fati - the Spanish striker who took over Lionel Messi's number 10 shirt at Barca - on a one-year contract. After a break to make room for the national team, Brighton will be a guest of Man Utd in round five of the Premier League on September 16.

Mitoma joined Brighton in 2021, from Japanese club Kawasaki Frontale for 3 million USD. The 26-year-old wing striker started playing for the English club last season, after a season of playing for Union SG in Belgium on loan. In 43 games for Brighton in all competitions, he scored 11 goals and assisted 11 times. Mitoma assisted eight times in the Premier League, more than any Japanese player in the history of the tournament.

Mitoma is also a star of the Japanese team. He scored seven goals in 17 international matches, participating in the squad for the 1/8 round of the 2022 World Cup and the 2021 Olympic semi-finals.

At the age of 16, Mitoma surprised everyone when he refused a professional contract to go to university. After that, he wrote his graduation thesis on the art of dribbling. Mitoma researches by attaching a camera to his head to record movements and test which movements help him overcome his opponents.