Red Bull Salzburg: The giants of Austrian Football
Red Bull Salzburg is an Austrian professional football club based in the Austrian state of Salzburg. The original club’s name is SV Austria Salzburg. It was rebranded as Red Bull Salzburg in 2005 after the corporate energy drink giants Red Bull took over the club. The manner in which Red Bull took over the club was one of the coldest takeovers in history. The statement of takeover read “This is a new club with no history”. Once the takeover was complete, it removed the all violet kit which was worn by the former club SV Austria Salzburg. Instead, the team wears the red and white kits and has the Red Bull Logo on its kit.
Since being rebranded in 2005, Red Bull Salzburg have been Austria’s most successful club winning the Austrian Bundesliga title 11 times out of a possible 15 and finishing as runner-up in the remaining 4 seasons. They have also won the Austrian Cup 7 times. However, the club reached the group stages of the UEFA Champions League only in 2019-20 which was after 11 failed attempts. They finished 3rd in the group which contained the likes of Liverpool and Napoli. Red Bull Salzburg, once again, qualified for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League in 2020-21, this time facing off against defending champions Bayern Munich, Madrid giants Atletico Madrid and Lokomotiv Moscow.
Red Bull Salzburg are well known for their scouting as well as producing world class players who have succeeded in clubs across Europe’s top 5 leagues. A few of these players include Kevin Kampl, Sadio Mane, Naby Keita, Peter Gulacsi, Dayot Upemacano, Marcel Sabitzer, Amadou Haidara and of course Erling Haaland. The next exciting youngster in their squad could be the 20-year-old Hungarian international Dominik Szoboszlai. One of the reasons they produce world class talent is the club policy which encourages youngsters and provides them a platform and a stepping stone to succeed at bigger clubs across the continent. They focus on developing not only Austrian players or other European players but also on non-European talent. Every club owned by Red Bull has the same club policy (New York Red Bulls as well as RB Leipzig).
Red Bull Salzburg will continue to dominate Austrian football and discover and produce world class talents from all over the world. But the interesting question is can it all turn into an appearance in the knockout stages of the Champions League in the next few years. And for that, we will have to wait and see.
