RB Leipzig, a club known for advancing player careers, is on a mission to develop homegrown talent from their academy. The German club, founded only in 2009, has struggled to produce their own stars despite impressive facilities and a strong reputation for player development.
The ground floor of Leipzig's training complex in Cottaweg resembles many European facilities, but inside, the focus on youth development becomes evident. Small plasma screens showcase highlights from youth matches, celebrating even the youngest talents. On one day, an under-11 midfielder's "increasing goal threat" and "general improvement in attacking areas" were displayed prominently for all to see – including first-team stars like Xavi Simons and Benjamin Sesko.
The comprehensive facility houses 50 youth players at any given time. They live on the upper floors with host families who provide care and support. The complex offers state-of-the-art gyms, a mini stadium, training pitches, an obstacle course, a sprinting hill, and even a padel court. Advanced monitoring systems track every movement of the older academy players, with coaches able to send performance feedback through a dedicated app.
Yet despite these resources, Leipzig has yet to produce many high-profile homegrown players. Currently, Stuttgart forward Ermedin Demirovic stands as the most notable Bundesliga player to have emerged from Leipzig's academy.
Manuel Baum, appointed as head of youth development in 2023, aims to change this trajectory. The 45-year-old former Augsburg and Schalke coach, who also led Germany's Under-20s and Under-18s teams, brings valuable experience to the role.
"All the experiences I've had in my football life, I want to try to bring to RB Leipzig," Baum explains. "In this part of Germany, they say there's not enough talent. But that's not true. It's the education, it's the system — but it's not the players."
Leipzig faces unique regional challenges. Located in Saxony in former East Germany, the club exists in relative isolation compared to the concentration of professional clubs in western Germany. "There are more clubs in the south, the south west, the west and the north. But here round Leipzig, there's very little — it's about two hours to Berlin from here and to Wolfsburg," Baum points out.
This geographic isolation creates a dual challenge: exclusivity in recruiting locally, but a deficit in the quality of coaching young players receive before joining Leipzig. Economic factors compound these issues. Unemployment in eastern Germany is two percent higher than in the west, and among Germany's 16 states, the five poorest by average wage (including Saxony) are all in the east.
These disadvantages manifest in stark statistics: of the 150 German-born players who competed in the Bundesliga this season, excluding Berlin, only seven were born in eastern Germany.
To address these challenges, Leipzig launched their Forderoffensive (funding offensive) program in March 2024, supporting local clubs with equipment subsidies, full-time coaching staff, and training resources. "We have more than 600,000 inhabitants in this region," Baum notes, "and so it must be possible to develop a lot of players out of this area. And that's why we're going into the schools and kindergartens and spending a lot of money on this age group, too."
Baum has strong convictions about current weaknesses in player development. "Everyone is talking about the transition area: that's between the under-19s and the first team. But in my opinion, the biggest problem is not the transition area but the foundation phase. We start to educate players too late, and we educate them more about where they need to run instead of what they do with the ball."
This philosophy has already shown early signs of success. In November 2024, 17-year-old Leipzig-born midfielder Viggo Gebel made his Champions League debut against Inter Milan and has since appeared in Bundesliga matches. Sixteen-year-old Faik Sakar also made his Bundesliga debut in December 2024 against Holstein Kiel. Notably, three of the ten youngest players in Bundesliga history made their first appearances for Leipzig.
Under Baum's leadership, the club has instituted comprehensive reforms to create a consistent pipeline of talent. "My first step was to create a mission: what is our goal in the academy?" he explains. "We want to develop professional footballers in a high-performance culture. That means not only for our first team. It is also a success for us when we have players in other German first-league clubs."
Baum's second step involved aligning all academy departments with this central mission, addressing the previously disconnected approaches where physiotherapists, athletic trainers, and coaches each pursued their own objectives rather than coordinating toward player development.
Now, Leipzig harmonizes playing styles and formations across age groups, with training periodized from above. Teams from under-16 to under-19 follow identical schedules divided into blocks for team, individual, and physical development, allowing coaches to implement their methods within a consistent framework.
Baum emphasizes four key questions for coaches: "When and how much do you train? That's the periodisation. What are you training? That's the content — shooting, passing and so on. How are you training? That's more the method — repetition, for example, or the methodology. And who is doing the training? Is it the head coach, the assistant coach, the athletic coach or the video coach... and so on."
Perhaps most radically, Baum has shifted the focus from team success to individual development. "It's rational to say that youth football is actually an individual sport," he asserts. "For me, the only use of the team is that it provides an environment where the players learn how to play within a team. Teams don't learn; individuals within teams learn. Teams don't make debuts, individuals do. I've never seen a whole team move to the first team. It's only ever a few players."
Leipzig employs innovative approaches to accelerate development. Their "Training Loans" program allows young players to spend part of their week with regional clubs in lower divisions, gaining experience in adult football. The Player Focus Program, led by Scottish coach Cameron Campbell, implements "bio-banding" – grouping players not necessarily by age but by developmental needs.
"We have three different game types," Baum explains. "A safe game, a stretch game and a stress game. If a player only has safe games, then he won't develop because he's always the best in his age group. But we have to put him under stress, because we want to see where he's not good. Our experience is that the first time he normally gets really stressed is when he moves to the first team, but by then it's too late."
Leipzig's academy also emphasizes positional versatility, not assigning fixed positions until players turn 16. "If someone has always been a centre-back, then how do they know what it's like to play against pressure from behind?" Baum asks.
The club has invested heavily in data capture and AI to evaluate effectiveness in one-on-one situations, which Baum considers a crucial performance indicator for future football. This technology helps assess how players perform with and without possession, including off-ball movements and tactical awareness.
While the full benefits of these reforms may take years to materialize, Baum remains committed to establishing measurable goals: "But I want to make it more accountable, so perhaps every year we should be getting 500 Bundesliga minutes from the academy, or we should be creating six new national team players. We have to have clear goals and a clear action plan."
As Leipzig continues this comprehensive overhaul of their youth development system, the club aims to become not just a buyer and developer of established talent, but a genuine producer of homegrown stars – creating a sustainable model that could shift their identity in German and European football for generations to come.
