RB Salzberg has produced a staggering conveyor belt of talent in recent years
Two of their best players, Erling Haaland and Benjamin Cesco, will face each other in the UCL
Still at the Austrian club, Roko Simic is set to become their next superstar
Imagine a story of Wimbledon and Milton Keynes with mountains instead of roundabouts. Replace concrete cows with the bovine animals of a popular energy drink. Add a decade of dominance and you find yourself in Austria.
This is the Austrian city where Red Bull investment has transformed football and cast aside tradition in the pursuit of sporting excellence.
This week in the Champions League, his quiet progress, and particularly his impressive strategy of recruitment and player development, will be put into sharp focus when extraordinary young forwards Erling Haaland and Benjamin Cesco go head-to-head.
Manchester City’s Haaland and Leipzig’s Cesco came through in a series of goals via Red Bull Hamburg, having been lured to the Eastern Alps on the promise of access to elite coaching, high-tech facilities and an atmosphere of opportunity.
Haaland arrived from Molde, Norway at the age of 18 and moved to Borussia Dortmund, winning medals as a teenager, playing in the Champions League and adding to his growing reputation.
Erling Haaland has become the world’s leading striker since leading RB Salzberg
He will face another of his former players, Benjamin Cesco, in the Champions League this week
The path served him well. At the age of 23, he is arguably the most lethal forward in world football, having led Manchester City to the treble. No wonder others have chosen the same path.
Cesko arrived from Slovenia at the age of 16, making his way through the youth ranks of RB Salzberg and apprenticing on loan at Liefering, owned by Red Bull and effectively RB Salzberg’s reserves competing in Austria’s second tier. Were.
In July, still only 20 and with Premier League clubs including Manchester United, Cesko left for another Red Bull club, Leipzig, and debuted in Germany with a flurry of goals.
‘You can definitely compare the two in terms of stature,’ said Bernhard Seinbuchner, sporting director of RB Hamburg. ‘In terms of space, the two are quite different. Benjamin came to Austria as a very young player, where we trained him for several years and he developed into a top player.
‘His skills as a footballer fit perfectly with the type of football we play. The special thing about him is that despite his size, he has incredible technique and is extremely agile. You don’t really expect that from a player of his stature.
Erling Haaland, on the other hand, arrived as an adult, having previously been in Molde’s first team. ‘When he was with us he was exceptionally ambitious and gave everything he had to football, so that he is now one of the best strikers in the world.’
After selling Sesko for £20 million, he turned to the next generation of graduates, recalling Roko Simic from a loan spell at Zurich and placing him up front alongside Karim Konate, who was only 19 and already Hee was a senior Ivory Coast international.
‘Konate is a player with an excellent blade, good technique and agility,’ says Siyonbuchner. ‘Roko is more of a fighter, someone who looks for infighting and conflict. They complement each other, but are still very young so we also give them the opportunity to develop further and at a good level. I am confident that his path will also lead to top European clubs.
Roko Simic, son of Croatia legend Dario, looks set to become the Austrian club’s next superstar.
Karim Konate is also set for stardom after scoring 15 goals in 18 games on loan at Liefering last year.
Simic, 20, was born in Italy three months after his father Dario, a Croatian international who won 100 caps in a long career, won a Champions League winners’ medal with AC Milan.
Tall, strong and athletic, he’s slim in the mold of Holland and Sesko, as if they had a cloning lab hidden in the hills.
What is not worth praising? Well, let’s go back to 2005 when Red Bull investors took over the identity of Austria’s Salzburg to accelerate their plans in European football.
They changed the traditional and distinctive purple-and-white colors and changed the crest to include red bulls, leading to fierce fans forming a separate faction and moving through divisions advocating for their legacy and fostering animosity. Began the long and painful process of fighting back. ,
Last Tuesday, the teams met for the first time, providing a timely reminder of the origin story.
Austria-Salzburg, having restored their purple colors and staying in the third tier, the Regional League West, exposed 18 years of hatred in the second round of the OFB Cup.
They lost 4–0 at home, but did not miss the chance to express righteous indignation with a scathing display of support and a large banner depicting the city’s most famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, striking the head of a red bull with a violin. Was shown to have happened.
‘In Salzburg, we play the violin for the first time,’ he said. A line that melts the hearts of those who still enjoy football with a hopeless romance.
Meanwhile, in the Champions League, Red Bull Salzberg takes on Real Sociedad tomorrow. Be careful of Simic and Konate.
The Owls felt it was wrong to fire Moore.
Sheffield Wednesday remain bottom of the Championship after a poor start to the season
Fans will regret the decision to sack Darren Moore after winning promotion with him
Disappointing times for Sheffield Wednesday. Lowest level of the championship, with owner Dezfon Chansiri feuding with fans and threatening to stop investing in the club.
The mood is so sour it’s hard to believe it’s only been 18 weeks since the excitement of the League One play-off final at Wembley.
Owning a club is not for the skinny. May there be success and may the players and manager get all the glory.
Fail and it’s your fault. So there might be sympathy for Chansiri were it not for his decision to sack Darren Moore after promotion, which was a wasteful and rash move and the catalyst for the mess the club is in now.
Moore returned to Hillsborough as manager of Huddersfield Town on Saturday, guaranteed a warm welcome from the home crowd. It remains to be seen whether his successor Xico Muñoz will live to welcome him.
Having spent an afternoon under the warm lights of Nottingham Forest’s Thursday Club last week, I can guarantee Ian Storey-Moore’s new authorized biography, Give It to Moore, He’ll Score! Written by Stuart Humphries and published by Pitch, it will be a source of fantastic stories.
Ian Storey-Moore’s new biography will definitely be full of great stories like the one from Brian Clough (pictured)
Storey-Moore is one of football’s storytellers, having plenty of material from his encounters with characters such as Brian Clough, George Best and Jim Baxter, a talented Scottish international who was rarely at his best in the Garibaldi Raid. Happens, but is always able to build his own team. -Friends laugh.
After a disappointing home defeat, Storey-Moore recalled Forest boss Matt Gillies confronting Baxter and saying: ‘That was the worst performance I have seen from a professional footballer in my life.’
Baxter rose from his seat, patted Gillies on the head and replied, ‘Don’t worry about it, Gaffer, there’s plenty more where that came from.’
We cannot avoid human error. Nor should we try. What VAR has done for football is to give officials a second chance to make a mistake.
