Jurgen Klopp sat in the VIP seats, a special observer making his first appearance at an RB Salzburg home match since his appointment as Red Bull Football’s head of global soccer. It’s a job that prioritises talent development, at which Salzburg are the leaders in the group of clubs Klopp now oversees.
Within barely half an hour of April’s contest against Sturm Graz, Klopp was looking like the animated, engaged figure who used to patrol the touchlines at Liverpool and Dortmund. Here, in his new gig, he was enthusiastically applauding the game’s opening goal.
It had been scored by a teenager in whom Salzburg – who on Sunday take on Al Hilal aiming to take a firm step towards the knockout phase of the Club World Cup – have great hopes.
Adam Daghim has startling speed, a booming left foot, a strong right foot, imposing height, impressive power in his duelling and evident confidence in his dribbling.
“He’s 1.90m tall and left-footed, which is something everybody is searching for, all over the world, and his mentality is also a really big strength,” beams Thomas Letsch, the Salzburg head coach, fully aware that at this club, such talents are bound, sooner rather than later, to move on to grander leagues than Austria’s.
Daghim’s prospects are many. Among those tracking the 19-year-old’s progress are Italy’s Atalanta. There is reported interest from English clubs. Choices may have to be made about his next destination as early as this summer.
Beyond that, he will be confronted with a major decision about where he steers his international career – whether to represent, at senior level, his native Denmark for whom he has been capped at age-group levels, or to follow his elder brother Ahmed or his fellow Danish-Palestinian striker, Al Ahly’s Wessam Abou Ali, in playing for Palestine, the land of his heritage.
The Daghim brothers grew up in Copenhagen, where his parents had settled after moving from the Middle East. Ahmed, five years older than Adam, acted as a pathfinder for his brother into the upper tiers of youth football in Denmark. Both were natural wingers, both jet-heeled. “When Adam was four or five, we could see he really had speed,” his father, Arafat, recalled to DAZN.
He was soon a prodigious achiever, enrolled in the youth system of FC Copenhagen and, with the promise of accelerated progress to first-team football, he agreed to sign for Aarhus, AGF. He duly became the youngest player in the club’s top-division history, at 16, when he made his Super Liga debut. At 17 he was clocking up minutes for AGF in Uefa competitions.
Salzburg were by that stage – the summer of 2023 – in contact. And their offer to any up-and-coming footballer tends to be compelling. The club’s tried-and-tested model since they came under the well-funded Red Bull umbrella has been to establish a streamlined worldwide scouting network with a high-rate of success for those whose elite potential it identifies.
The diverse Salzburg squads reflect that global reach. The club’s coaches like to promote young talent rapidly and, in many famous cases, to then wish them well in their path upwards when, still young, they join one of Europe’s superclubs.
A new recruit can aspire to play in the Uefa Champions League, too. It was RB Salzburg’s consistent participation in the competition that earned them their ticket to the Club World Cup.
Standards slipped for Salzburg in the 2024-25 Champions League, but for Daghim it marked another landmark. He struck an important goal in their pre-qualifying tie against Dynamo Kiev to ensure Salzburg would make the league phase; he scored his first goal in the Champions League proper, against Atletico Madrid, later in the season.
The precedents he can look to are many and illustrious. Daghim cites two. “When I knew Salzburg were interested, I saw Erling Haaland and Sadio Mane had played there,” he told DAZN.
To that list of ex-Salzburg forwards can be added the likes of Benjamin Sesko, now coveted at RB Leipzig, Dominik Szoboszlai, of Liverpool, Noah Okafor of AC Milan or Munas Dabbur, the Nazareth-born striker whose later career took him to La Liga, the German Bundesliga and most recently to Shabab Al Ahli.
And that’s before you start to catalogue the players involved at the Club World Cup for whom a formative spell at Salzburg was a trampoline to major success in Europa’s leading leagues; Bayern Munich’s Dayot Upamecano and Konrad Laimer, Borussia Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi and Marcel Sabitzer and above all City’s Haaland, who departed Austria aged 19, with 29 goals from his 27 games in Salzburg’s colours.
Daghim, who spent the first of his two seasons at Salzburg at their feeder club Liefering – he was only 18 then – is entitled to dream of following in those sorts of footsteps. Klopp likes what he sees. He’s shown an effectiveness across positions in the attacking line, and a collective ethic. “He will always work for the team, which is a really important part of our philosophy,” says Letsch.
An event like the Club World Cup represents a showcase. Letsch insisted on Daghim’s participation ahead of competing interest from Denmark in taking the forward to the European under-21 championship, which is being played simultaneously.
Although the Salzburg coach chose to use Daghim as an impact substitute in the opening fixture against Pachuca of Mexico, he did so minded to keep him fresh for the collisions with Al Hilal and on Thursday against Real Madrid.
Salzburg, a little unexpectedly, sit at the top of Group H thanks to the 2-1 win over Pachuca. The meeting with Al Hilal looks pivotal. The Saudi Arabian giants impressed in their matchday one draw with Madrid but will sense that Daghim and his young teammates have an upstart swagger about them – and some big dreams for the long-term future.
