Hype, elite development and Red Bull Salzburg wunderkind Benjamin Šeško
Benjamin Šeško is a genuinely exciting talent but what does that mean? And shouldn’t we just leave him alone for a bit?
In last week’s newsletter I looked ahead to the Women’s Finalissima, the showpiece meeting of the champions of Europe and South America at Wembley.
More than 83,000 spectators turned out to see England beat Brazil on penalties, quite an occasion for the women’s game and a thoroughly enjoyable one for those of us in attendance.
The weather was miserable and a Wembley Park closure at full time caused carnage afterwards but it was more than worth the trip. England were fantastic in the first half and won an international trophy on penalties.
What’s not to like?
Hype, elite development and Red Bull Salzburg wunderkind Benjamin Šeško
Run a Google search for Benjamin Šeško and you’ll discover a young player about whom the world of football is justifiably excited. The 19-year-old Slovenian striker is an outstanding prospect and has attracted attention from all of Europe’s most prominent leagues in his short career.
Red Bull Salzburg youngsters tend to do that. Their domestic dominance, for which Šeško must take his fair share of recent credit, means that he’s already a double winner and a two-time Austrian Bundesliga champion.
When Red Bull is involved, the development and success of young players is under a microscope. Šeško’s future achievements will be proof not only of his ability but of the Red Bull model itself, his initial scouting already evidence of its effectiveness.
If the sport is littered with a hundred next Lionel Messis then Šeško is the first ‘the next Erling Haaland’, an unenviable and additional pressure brought about by little more than their shared position on the field of play and mutual history with Red Bull in Salzburg.
Šeško was a discovery in a way Haaland, perhaps, was not. Domžale, where he was playing as recently as 2019, is within comfortable driving distance of Salzburg and yet a world apart in football terms. Slovenia is no backwater but its most experienced current national team forward is 29-year-old Andraž Šporar. His international goal tally will soon be surpassed by Šeško, ten years his junior, in half as many caps.
The teenager was taken over the border by Salzburg and played a few minutes before following the well-trodden path to FC Liefering, Red Bull’s de facto reserve team in Austria’s second tier. He returned to the first team squad in 2021 and hasn’t looked back for a second. It wouldn’t be his style.
Šeško is a menace. His size and strength make him difficult to play against and he’s willing, desperate even, to use them. He’s a physical, tireless striker with the aggression dial stuck on eleven and attack mode permanently engaged. He’s a devil in development, a bully of the best kind.
Every week a new defender finds out that Šeško is all sinew and elbows. It’s so often said about the best young footballers that they play like adults right out of the gate. Šeško is perhaps the gold standard. Due to my work with HUNDRED I’ve been watching him closely for some time and I have to remind myself constantly that he doesn’t turn 20 until May.
But physicality alone doesn’t score a goal every 109 minutes even in the Austrian Bundesliga. Šeško is also a technical player and a bit of a show-off, his all-in attitude extending to scoring goals and entertaining supporters as well as barrelling around making life hell for defenders.
When he has the ball he’s much more than a battering ram. He has quick feet, great balance and tons of quality, not to mention a creative eye and the kind of deceptive pace that makes rangy forwards so lethal.
Little wonder, then, that fans of major clubs in the Premier League and elsewhere continue to froth over the possibility of signing him even though he’s already been snapped up by – you guessed it – RB Leipzig. He switches to Germany in June and will be contracted until 2028, meaning his next move will cost someone a pretty serious stack of wonga.
Notwithstanding the obvious iffyness of the Red Bull arrangement, it might just be the best destination for him. Šeško doesn’t seem to me like the sort of player to be cowed by any situation – he hasn’t got a reverse gear anyway so it’s academic – but the spotlight of Leipzig, for which Salzburg is now a reliable incubator of talent, is less harsh than he might have experienced elsewhere.
Moving to England at 20 would have been jumping in at the deep end. Football is unforgiving outside the Red Bull cocoon and Šeško will inevitably succumb to a dip sooner rather than later even though he’s barely shown any indication of it thus far.
The pressure cooker of the Premier League is not an easy place to learn – Memphis Depay, Lazar Marković, Naby Keïta and Alireza Jahanbakhsh are just a few of the players I felt sure would pass muster but found England a difficult nut to crack. Šeško might not play young, but he is. He can do without being broken by over-extended ambition before he hits 21.
You’ll have worked out by now that I think Šeško is going to be a brilliant and decorated footballer over the next decade. But I also believe it’s unfair of me to say it and that’s worth examining a little more closely.
Elite young footballers have never been better protected and managed. Coaches are trained specifically in the development of players from the very first course. Analytics, sports science and psychology are all integrated and the collective smarts of the industry are at the disposal of the people responsible for their progress.
It’s easy to assume – fairly, to an extent – that teenage prospects play no more or less than they should, in the right games and at the right times, because the science dictates it. In that sense there might not have been a better time to be a 19-year-old striker on the brink of a big move to Germany.
Yet Šeško’s future, like anyone’s, is unknown. The variables are innumerable. The risk of burnout and the unpredictable effects of pressure can still concoct a claustrophobic mixture that limits a player’s room to grow. Flattering though it may be, hype is as much poison as tonic.
The protective infrastructure around a young player’s career in today’s game is designed to maximise performance and value. But football, the football media and football supporters also have a responsibility to these players as individuals.
Strip away their choice of profession and think about what these players are going through. The psychological strain of their admittedly lucrative occupation, the pressure of competitive sport in the spotlight, is quite enough. The added weight of expectation and headlines and attention isn’t helpful. At 19, one might even argue with good reason that it’s morally wrong.
The intensity and excitement are unavoidable but I’ll take some persuading that the baseless cyclone of transfer speculation around a teenager – a teenager whose immediate future is settled, mind you – is normal or acceptable.
“PGMOL is aware of an incident involving assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis and Liverpool defender Andrew Robertson at half-time during the Liverpool v Arsenal fixture at Anfield. We will review the matter in full once the game has concluded.”
Another Super Sunday on Normal Island.
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Martin Odegaard is the child prodigy who made it to become Arsenal’s perfect captain (i)
‘I can’t live without it’: grassroots referees on passion in face of abuse (The Guardian)
Naples: A city on the brink as Napoli close in on first title in 33 years (BBC Sport)
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