RB Leipzig are one of Europe’s biggest talent factories, having developed some of the biggest names in the game.
Just in the Premier League, Josko Gvardiol and Dominik Szoboszlai were former alumni in East Germany, while Dani Olmo moved for big money back to Barcelona last summer after winning the European Championship with Spain.
RB Leipzig’s mantra, fittingly, follows the drinks brand’s slogan of providing wings. So when FourFourTwo sat down to speak to Die Roten Bullen’s Ridle Baku, we were keen to find out who the next A-list export from the Red Bull Arena.
RB Leipzig star Ridle Baku names the player who impressed him most since joining
Baku signed from Wolfsburg in January on a two-and-a-half-year deal midseason, providing cover down the right flank.
At 26, the German international is actually older than several of the club’s biggest talents – and now, he says that he’s been most impressed with Benjamin Sesko.
“Our striker Sesko, I was really impressed, to be honest,” he says. “The first training session, I knew already that he’s a good player.
“But I’m speaking about potential, probably he’s not [currently at] potential he could be, but right now, what I saw already, very impressive. He has everything to be a world-class player.”
Sesko has been linked for a while with a move to the Premier League, with Arsenal said to be enamoured with him. Compared to Erling Haaland – played for Red Bull Salzburg – the 6ft 5in Slovenian is a superb finisher and has excellent movement, as well as having the build of a target man.
With Leipzig still chasing Champions League football next term, however, manager Marco Rose told his press conference ahead of the crunch clash against Borussia Dortmund this weekend that Sesko’s team-mates need to “find solutions” to generate better opportunities for him.
“Sesko is good in the air and needs to have deliveries to score with a header,” Rose said. “Of course, he can also score from distance. But strikers are streaky, sometimes they have a phase in which they struggle to score, and it is often because of details.
“It is because they get blocked more often. It is because opponents know what they are going to do and can anticipate. We will have to find solutions and create opportunities for them.”
