RB Leipzig: Szoboszlai does not want to talk about his future

“I’m not a top star”

With 13 assists, Dominik Szoboszlai is currently the best assist provider in the ranks of Bundesliga club RB Leipzig. In the run-up to the Champions League duel with Manchester City (Wednesday from 9 p.m. in the TM live ticker), the 22-year-old captain of the Hungarian national team spoke about his positive performances in the current season – and avoided looking into the future beyond the summer .

community
Discuss RB Leipzig in the forum nowThis way
Szoboszlai switched from RB Salzburg to the Saxons in January 2021 for a fee of 22 million euros, but was initially out for six months due to a pubic bone injury. The attacking midfielder only returned for the 2021/22 season and established himself in the Bundesliga, especially in the current season, the right-footed player from the starting XI Marco Roses is hard to imagine. “I owe it to specialists in Austria, where I was treated in consultation with the medical team from RB Leipzig. My body was adjusted again. I woke up in pain every morning for eight months. It’s all gone since then and I feel like a new person and I’m no longer in pain. I also go for regular check-ups now because I want to prevent this injury from coming back,” Szoboszlai reported in the “Kicker” interview about his previous injury.

In 2022/23 he has contributed 18 goals in 29 games for RB in all competitions. “If I get a chance, I want to take it, and I’ve mostly managed to do that in the last few months. It may not always have been 100, but it was always at least 90 percent. Only in the 1-1 draw against Bayern in the first game of the year did I sleep through the first half, so I wasn’t ready at all. But I told the coach at half-time that I didn’t want to get out, but wanted to show that I could do it differently. And I managed to do that in the second half,” said the Hungarian, summing up his performance to date, which brought him a market value increase of seven million euros at the end of last year. With a market value of 35 million euros, the 22-year-old is one of the five most valuable professionals in the RB squad and is also the most valuable Hungarian.

Although he has long enjoyed a higher reputation, especially in his home country, Szoboszlai is down-to-earth. “I’m not a top star and I don’t want to be. I’m the exact same player as everyone else. (…) For me, the team always comes first, and if I have to defend more in a game than I’m allowed to attack, that’s the way it is. However, the fact remains that I prefer to attack than defend,” said the 28-time national player, referring to his defensive qualities. Training the latter was by no means a matter of course in his development – on the contrary, Szoboszlai benefited from Marco Rose, under whose aegis he worked at the sister club in Salzburg between 2017 and 2019.

“Indeed, I had to learn that very, very hard when I joined the pros in Salzburg and Marco Rose became my coach. He told me that this is extremely important. I’ve been doing it ever since. I was very young then and he had to teach me what to do to play at the highest level. In Leipzig, too, he is a coach who has given me a lot of confidence. And I want to show him that it’s good and right to trust me,” said Szoboszlai about his relationship with his coach.

In Leipzig, which has only suffered one defeat in the past 20 games, Szoboszlai’s contract runs until 2026. When asked about his future and possible transfer speculations, the RB professional kept a low profile and instead announced that he still had a lot planned for RB: “In the summer I’m I still player from RB Leipzig. But I really don’t want to talk about what can happen sometime in the future. We still have a lot planned for Leipzig, everything is still possible: we’re in the Champions League, we want to defend the DFB Cup and we’re still doing well in the league. We have some chances to create something special.”

To home page