Sports director Max Eberl has defended player changes from Austrian series champions Red Bull Salzburg to sister club RB Leipzig. “In the long run I’m just trying to get the best players to Leipzig – and if the best player is playing for a possible replacement for Konni Laimer in Salzburg, then I’ll keep looking around there,” said the 49-year-old on Friday evening before the top game against Borussia Dortmund (1: 2) on “DAZN”. Midfielder Nicolas Seiwald was announced a few days ago – the 21-year-old costs 20 million euros and will be the 20th player to move from Salzburg to Leipzig since 2010.
With Seiwald: These players switched from Red Bull Salzburg to RB Leipzig
A total of 18 players have switched from Red Bull Salzburg to RB Leipzig since 2010, with numbers 19 and 20 joining Benjamin Sesko and Nicolas Seiwald in the summer of 2023. The German Bundesliga club paid a total fee of 177 million euros. All transfers to click through! (as of February 26, 2023)
Thomas Dähne (age at that time: 20) – on 07/01/2014 (free transfer)
“He is very young, he is very hungry, great potential – accordingly perfect RB transfer,” Eberl explained the Seiwald commitment. During his tenure as manager of Borussia Mönchengladbach, he had criticized transfers between the RB clubs Leipzig and Salzburg. “What bothers me about RB is this pushing of players from Salzburg to Leipzig and from Leipzig to Salzburg. That has a bad aftertaste for me because they basically have two squads,” Eberl said in an interview with “Focus” in 2016.
“I said something about it as an opponent at the time. Seven years later, the world has turned in football,” Eberl now explained his change of mind. Salzburg is “quite normal for us, like any other club we look at, so we have no advantage,” said Eberl. “As with any other club, we will try to bring the best players to Leipzig.”
Eberl also commented on the former Mainz and Schalke Rouven Schröder, who is about to become a sports director in Leipzig. The 47-year-old is “of course a great professional,” praised Eberl. “If everything works out as it seems, then we have a great sporting reinforcement to further strengthen the sporting team around the team.” Schröder and Eberl are said to have a very good relationship with each other. RB is very ambitious, so you want to “position yourself very, very strongly”. Schröder most recently worked as sports director for FC Schalke 04, where he resigned at the end of October last year for personal reasons.
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