So, who’s winning the transfer window, that imaginary spin-off from real football that fills speculative hours between seasons? Business in the selling and buying of elite players has seldom seemed more dispersed from the central, monied hub of Europe, with the significant sums spent by Saudi Arabia’s Pro League clubs and some headline recruitment in the American MLS.
But, with nine days left of July, the eye is drawn to the turnover, the profit margins and the yield of adept scouting at RB Leipzig, where on Friday they were ready themselves for a potentially record-breaking sale.
Should Josko Gvardiol finalise a likely move from Leipzig to Manchester City, he may well clock in as the most expensive defender in the sport’s history. A fee close to €100 million would also push the Bundesliga club’s income just up behind Chelsea’s €250 million in sales so far this summer.
But where Chelsea are selling off players as urgently as they splurged on would-be future stars in the last winter transfer window, the Leipzig model is not so volatile.
For supporters of a club with a startling recent history of rising up the sport’s hierarchy – and a deep unpopularity across the rest of the Bundesliga for the corporate takeover by soft-drink conglomerate Red Bull that enabled four promotions achieved in six seasons after 2010 – the trading routines are eerily predictable.
Leipzig, Champions League regulars since 2017, meet a bigger rival in Europe and that rival then swoops for one of their classy defenders. Paris Saint-Germain did it. When Leipzig went all the way to a European Cup semi-final, losing 3-0 to PSG, they had 22-year-old Nordi Mukiele at right-back. He is now a PSG player.
After Liverpool beat them 4-0 on aggregate in the last-16, the victors bought Ibrahima Konate the following summer. City defeated Leizpig by a margin of seven goals in March. They still had enough admiration for Gvardiol, who scored in the drawn first leg of that tie, to pursue their interest in the Croatian even when the asking price was set at €100 million.
That’s a very steep shift in his value. Gvardiol, who won a bronze medal with his country at the last World Cup, joined Leipzig as a 19-year-old only two years ago. He cost less than €19 million.
Konate was recruited as a teenager and sold for a €40 million profit to Liverpool four years later. In the same summer, Konate’s fellow France international defender, Dayot Upamecano, joined Bayern Munich for a marginally higher fee.
Upamecano had followed a familiar transfer trampoline up to a superclub, one that propels young talent through the Red Bull network. He had moved to Leipzig from RB Salzburg in Austria.
Likewise Dominik Szoboszlai, the 22-year-old Hungarian playmaker whose €70 million move to Liverpool had already boosted Leipzig’s treasury when talks over Gvardiol accelerated, a deal made hot on the heels of striker Christopher Nkunku formalising his €60 millon transfer to Chelsea.
The profit on Nkunku, 25, Leipzig’s leading scorer last season, amounts to €47 million. He was bought from PSG for €13 million in 2019.
And the same big clubs keep going back to Leipzig, confident it is a fine setting for talent to develop. Liverpool shopped there for Naby Keita in the past, Chelsea for Timo Werner, and if neither of those costly signings fulfilled every expectation in the Premier League – Werner rejoined the east German club a year ago – the faith in the Leipzig method remains.
Chelsea hired Leipzig’s former technical director Christopher Vivell last year, as the London club’s new owners embarked on an extravagant winter buying spree and set down plans to establish links with potential nursery clubs, along the lines of the Leipzig-Salzburg relationship. Chelsea’s owners took a majority stake in France’s Strasbourg last month.
Liverpool, meanwhile, have loaned to Leipzig the exciting Fabio Carvalho, 20, believing Carvalho will benefit from having more game-time in a competitive side used to trusting in youth. Xavi Simons, the precocious Netherlands international, has also joined Leipzig on loan from PSG.
There are vacancies for them to fill. Szobolszlai’s creative influence will be missed, as will Nkunku’s goals, and the midfield drive of Konrad Laimer, who allowed his contract to run down and has joined Bayern on a free transfer.
Here, the Salzburg conveyor belt has been busy. Nicolas Seiwald, a midfielder, and Benjamin Sesko, a centre-forward, have moved from one RB club to the other.
Leipzig have also broken their own transfer record to bring in the Belgian international striker Lois Openda, from Lens, who he spearheaded to runners-up position in Ligue 1. Openda has cost €43 million. He’s only 23 – the buying club are banking, as ever, on his value rising steadily.
