Leeds United‘s post-Marcelo Bielsa rebuild has had an unmistakable Red Bull tinge to it.
The first three major incomings to Leeds since the popular Argentine departed in February all have connections with Red Bull Salzburg, the Austrian club that since 2005 has been owned by the billion-dollar energy drinks company.
Jesse Marsch succeeded Bielsa in the Elland Road dugout following a successful period in charge of Salzburg and a much less successful stint with RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga.
And the club’s first two signings since securing Premier League survival both joined from the Austrian champions; American playmaker Brenden Aaronson signed in a deal worth £25m and Danish right-back Rasmus Nissen Kristensen followed for £10m. As reported by i, Leeds are also exploring a deal for RB Leipzig midfielder Tyler Adams.
Aaronson and Kristensen are not the only players with a Salzburg history to have joined English clubs in the opening weeks of the summer transfer window.
Manchester City’s newest superstar Erling Haaland made his barnstorming introduction to European football in their colours prior to joining previous club Borussia Dortmund.
Sadio Mane, the club’s most famous export pre-Haaland, meanwhile has gone the opposite way, swapping the Premier League for the Bundesliga and joining Bayern Munich.
Since Red Bull’s involvement, much of Salzburg’s transfer dealings have been with Bundesliga clubs, and, in particular, their “unofficial” partners RB Leipzig.
But increasingly Premier League clubs are circling for talent. From 2014-2020, Salzburg sold only two players to Premier League clubs: Mane to Southampton and Takumi Minamino to Liverpool.
Over the past two summer transfer windows that number has doubled with Patson Daka (Leicester) and Enock Mwepu (Brighton) arriving last summer and Aaronson and Kristensen this.
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And given the club’s proficiency when it comes to both identifying and nurturing talent, it is a trend that looks set to continue.
“We have a very clear picture of young talent that we want to see with us,” Cristoph Freund, Salzburg’s sporting director tells i.
“And when they are with us, they not only receive the best possible training, but should also get as many working minutes as possible in the professional area very early on. First at our cooperation club FC Liefering, then later at FC Red Bull Salzburg.”
Salzburg’s youth-orientated approach was in evidence during the Champions League last-16 tie against Bayern Munich last season when their starting line-up had an average age of just 23 years and 242 days.
The club’s model is to buy players under the age of 22, expose them to first-team football and sell them on for a profit, by which time someone else will be ready and waiting to take their place.
“They always set their release clauses quite low,” Karan Tejwani, author of Wings of Change: How the World’s Biggest Energy Drink Manufacturer Made a Mark in Football, tells i.
“They accept that they will lose their players and there’s a plan in place where as one star goes another one comes in. The best example was the Haaland, Daka and [Karim] Adeyemi connection: Haaland went first, then Daka came in, made his name and went to Leicester and then Adeyemi came in and is going to Dortmund now. So the succession planning is always there.”
Any potential signing is carefully monitored.
“If we see players who interest us, we like to observe them for a really long time,” Freund reveals. “In the case of Erling Haaland, we followed him for years. We don’t just watch their qualities on the pitch, we try to find out by talking to people around them about how they are as people and their background.”
According to Freund, a team of 10 scouts work remotely, using different platforms to scour the globe for potential stars of the future. Salzburg cast the net far and wide and have enjoyed sustained success shopping in markets that tend to be overlooked, such as in Ligue 2 – France’s Championship equivalent – and in Africa, where links with agents, clubs and academies have been established.
“The French lower leagues are quite heavily targeted by them,” Tejwani says. “It all started with Gerard Houllier who worked with Ralf Rangnick in the 2010s. He set up a scouting system in France that allowed players like Naby Keita [from Istres] and Sadio Mane [from Metz] to be identified and ever since they’ve had a lot of success – Dayot Upamecano [now of Bayern Munich] is another one.”
Salzburg have also tapped into the expertise of former West Ham and Tottenham striker Frederic Kanoute and his 12 Management agency which specialises in moving promising African players to European clubs. Kanoute played a key role in deals which took Daka to FC Liefering [Salzburg’s feeder club] and Mwepu directly to Salzburg from Zambian club Kafue Celtic.
“12 Management is constantly in contact with Salzburg,” Lee Kawanu, founder and owner of Kafue Celtic, says. “Any player at Kafue Celtic that seems of the quality that can make it at Red Bull, they will tell them about it and look at giving them a trial.”
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“Aaronson was perhaps too good for the Austrian league where Salzburg have a competitive and financial advantage but I’m not entirely sure that he’ll be able to immediately replicate that in the Premier League,” says Tejwani.
“I’d say he needs a season to settle in. Kristensen is far more experienced and was at Ajax before and I think he will do quite well. I think he will be an immediate success whereas Aaronson might need a bit more time.”
Should the pair flourish at Leeds and both Daka and Mwepu build upon promising debut campaigns in English football, expect the Red Bull Salzburg influx to continue at pace.
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