RB Leipzig’s managing director for sport Marcel Schafer explains how the club lost sight of its DNA but after missing out on Europe they are going back to their core principles with the help of Jurgen Klopp and a new group and young and hungry players…
Maybe we lost a little bit our DNA,” he says. Difficult conversations were had among Red Bull’s high-profile leadership group that includes Jurgen Klopp and Mario Gomez. “The main target was to get back to the roots of what makes RB Leipzig so successful.”
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There has long been an irony in German football that the club viewed by many as the most inauthentic in the Bundesliga given their controversial beginnings have actually had the clearest vision. While erstwhile giants floundered, their identity was always evident.
Maybe we lost a little bit our DNA,” he says. Difficult conversations were had among Red Bull’s high-profile leadership group that includes Jurgen Klopp and Mario Gomez. “The main target was to get back to the roots of what makes RB Leipzig so successful.”
There has long been an irony in German football that the club viewed by many as the most inauthentic in the Bundesliga given their controversial beginnings have actually had the clearest vision. While erstwhile giants floundered, their identity was always evident.
Asked by Sky Sports, where things went wrong and Schafer talks of the need to “confirm the philosophy” of the club. “Red Bull style means high intensity against the ball, high pressing, counter-attacking,” he stresses. They began to move away from that.
“If you are one of the top teams, you need to find solutions with the ball. But we cannot change the whole philosophy and just say, okay, now we are a team who just want possession, possession, possession. We are not a team like that. It is not authentic.”
Schafer accepts that the possession game needs to be part of it. “Against teams who defend deep, we need to find solutions for closed spaces.” But not at the cost of their out-of-possession game. “Last year, we had huge issues with that,” he concedes.
Ole Werner’s arrival as head coach is aimed at correcting that but it is Klopp’s presence that is perhaps most intriguing. His remit as head of global soccer at Red Bull is broad. “He is responsible for all the teams, for the playing identity, for the playing philosophy.”
On the field, there is what Schafer calls “a match” but it is off the field, where Klopp’s role includes persuading players to join the project, that the greatest gains could be made. His reputation in the game is such that it is giving Leipzig an edge in negotiations.
Speaking to Johan Bakayoko recently, the young forward signed from PSV, he revealed that he was interested in joining Leipzig before speaking to Klopp but afterwards he was utterly convinced. Schafer knows that it is a weapon in the club’s armoury now.
“With Johan, it helped a lot, of course, that Jurgen had a conversation with him. If we are convincing a player, we try to give them the full Red Bull energy, the full Red Bull power, in person.” The Klopp factor is a big part of that process. “We try to do everything.”
In a transitional summer, it was not just Bakayoko who arrived but Conrad Harder, the Danish forward from Sporting. There were two teenagers acquired for significant sums in Yan Diomande and Andrija Maksimovic. The oldest buy was Romulo at 23 years old.
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