Imagine the tale of Wimbledon and Milton Keynes with mountains not roundabouts. Replace the concrete cows with the bovine beasts of a popular energy drink. Add a decade of domination and you find yourself in Salzburg.
It is the Austrian city where Red Bull investment has transformed football and cast tradition aside in pursuit of sporting excellence.
In the Champions League this week, their serene progress, and in particular their impressive strategy of recruitment and player development, will be held in sharp focus when exceptional young forwards Erling Haaland and Benjamin Sesko go head to head.
Haaland of Manchester City and Sesko of Leipzig came through Red Bull Salzburg in a blaze of goals, lured to the eastern Alps on a promise of access to elite coaching, high-tech facilities and an environment of opportunity.
Haaland came at 18 from Molde in Norway and left for Borussia Dortmund having won medals, played in the Champions League and enhanced a burgeoning reputation, all while a teenager.
The pathway served him well. At 23, he is arguably the most lethal forward in world football having fired Manchester City to the Treble. Little wonder others have chosen the same route.
Sesko arrived at 16 from Slovenia, making his way through RB Salzburg’s youth ranks and an apprenticeship on loan at Liefering, also owned by Red Bull and effectively RB Salzburg’s reserves competing in Austria’s second tier.
In July, still only 20 and with Premier League clubs including Manchester United on his trail, Sesko left for Leipzig, another Red Bull club, and has started in Germany with a flurry of goals.
‘You can certainly compare the two in terms of stature,’ said Bernhard Seonbuchner, sporting director of RB Salzburg. ‘In terms of space, the
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