FC Red Bull Salzburg

FC RB Salzburg was founded on 13 September 1933 as SV Austria Salzburg, after the merger of the city's two clubs, Hertha and Rapid.[3] In 1950, the club was dissolved but re-founded later the same year. It reached the Austrian top flight in 1953, and finished 9th of 14 clubs in its first season there, avoiding relegation by five points.[4]

Vienna-born Erich Probst was Salzburg's first-ever international, earning the last of his 19 Austrian caps on 27 March 1960.[5] Adolf Macek, who made the first of his four international appearances on 9 October 1965, was the club's first local player to earn a cap for Austria.[6]

Salzburg were top-flight runners-up for the first time in the 1970–71 season, gaining 43 points to Wacker Innsbruck's 44.[7] The club's first-ever European campaign was in the 1971–72 UEFA Cup, and it was eliminated 5–4 on aggregate by Romanian club UTA despite a 3–1 home victory in the second leg. In 1974, Salzburg reached the Austrian Cup final for the first time, losing 2–1 away to Austria Wien in the first leg before a 1–1 home draw in the second.[8]

Salzburg moved to their current stadium, now known as the Red Bull Arena in 2003.

In 1978, the club's official name was changed to SV Casino Salzburg and in 1997, to SV Wüstenrot Salzburg, due to a sponsorship deal with an Austrian financial services corporation. The team often remained referred to as SV Austria Salzburg.

Salzburg reached their first and so far only European final, the 1994 UEFA Cup final, where they lost both legs 1–0 to Inter Milan.[9] That same season, Salzburg won their first Bundesliga title, beating Austria Wien by 51 points to 49.[10] The title was retained the following season as Salzburg beat Sturm Graz on goal difference.[11] The 1995–96 season saw a drop to eighth place, one above a relegation play-off,[12] but the club's third title in four seasons was won in 1997 as they beat holders Rapid Wien by three points.[13]

Salzburg's inaugural UEFA Champions League campaign in 1994–95 saw them reach the group stage by beating Israel's Maccabi Haifa 5–2 on aggregate.[14] They were drawn into Group D with holders and eventual finalists Milan and eventual winners Ajax, as well as AEK Athens. Despite drawing both matches with Ajax, Salzburg picked up a solitary 3–1 win away in Athens and were eliminated in third place.[15]

The club moved to its current stadium in 2003.[16]

The Red Bull company headed by Dietrich Mateschitz purchased the Salzburg Sport AG on 6 April 2005. The club's bylaws were amended so that the RedBull Salzburg GmbH has the sole right to appoint and recall board members of the club. After the takeover, Mateschitz changed the club's name, management, and staff, declaring "this is a new club with no history". The club's website initially claimed that it was founded in 2005, but was ordered to remove this claim by the Austrian Football Association. The new authority removed all trace of violet from the club logo and the team now play in the colours of red and white, to the consternation of much of the club's traditional support.[17] A small pair of wings form the motif of the new club crest, displayed on the team jersey, in accordance with Red Bull's commercial slogan at the time: "gives you wings". This complete re-branding of the team proved very similar to Red Bull's treatment of its two Formula One racing teams, Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Torro Rosso, now rebranded as Scuderia AlphaTauri. Red Bull, however, would not completely follow this precedent when it acquired the MetroStars club in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States; while it rebranded the team as the New York Red Bulls, it chose to recognise the MetroStars' history.

Red Bull Salzburg, October 2005

The traditional supporters tried to resist the radical changes and formed their own movement in order to regain some of the tradition. Several fan-clubs throughout Europe voiced their support in what they saw as a fight against the growing commercialisation of football. However, after five months of protests and talks between the club owners and traditional fans, no compromise was reached. On 15 September 2005, the "violet" supporters stated that the talks had irreversibly broken down and efforts to reach an agreement would be terminated.

This gave rise to two separate fan groups: the "Red-Whites", who support "Red Bull Salzburg" and the "Violet-Whites", who want to preserve the 72-year-old tradition and refuse to support the rebranded club. The Violet-Whites ultimately formed a new club, Austria Salzburg after viewing Red Bull's offer to maintain the original colours only for the goalkeeper's socks at away games as an insult.[18]

The club's history going back to 1933 was later restored on the club website.[19]

Dutchman Ricardo Moniz coached Red Bull to a Bundesliga and cup double in the 2011–12 season.

German Roger Schmidt was the team's coach from 2012 until 2014.

In May 2006, Red Bull announced on their website that they had hired veteran Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni, together with his former player, German FIFA World Cup winner Lothar Matthäus, as co-trainers. The pair initially denied having reached a deal, but officially signed on 23 May 2006. Red Bull ultimately won the 2006–07 Bundesliga by a comfortable margin with five games still left in the season after drawing 2–2 with previous season's champions Austria Wien on 28 April 2007.

Red Bull were beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk in the third qualifying round[20][21] of the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League, and were then knocked out of the 2007–08 UEFA Cup in the first round by AEK Athens. On 13 February 2008, Giovanni Trapattoni confirmed that he would be taking over as the new Republic of Ireland national team manager in May. In his final season, the club finished as runners-up, six points behind champions Rapid Wien.[22] Trapattoni was succeeded by Co Adriaanse, under whom they finished as champions, but he left after one year. His successor was Huub Stevens. On 14 May 2010, Stevens' Red Bull retained the Bundesliga.[23]

Jesse Marsch – the team's former manager

Stevens was replaced by Dutchman Ricardo Moniz at the end of the 2010–11 season, in which Red Bull were denied a third consecutive title by Sturm Graz, who won the league by a three-point margin.[24] Red Bull finished second in the league, and qualified for the following season's UEFA Europa League. Moniz was ordered to integrate young players from the Junior squad: at the beginning of the 2011–12 season Daniel Offenbacher, Martin Hinteregger, Georg Teigl and Marco Meilinger were promoted to the first team. In the 2011–12 season, Red Bull won the Bundesliga league title and Cup double.

After the 2011–12 season, Moniz departed his post despite having a year remaining on his contract. The new coach for the 2012–13 season was Roger Schmidt, who came from SC Paderborn of the German 2. Bundesliga. In July 2012, Red Bull were knocked out of the Champions League in the second qualifying round against F91 Dudelange of Luxembourg, losing the first leg 1–0 away, followed by a 4–3 home win which saw the club eliminated on away goals.[25]

After that, the team was changed fundamentally. At the end of the transfer period, new players were purchased: Valon Berisha, Kevin Kampl, Håvard Nielsen, Sadio Mané, Isaac Vorsah, Rodnei. In the 2012–13 season, the team finished second in the league, behind champions Austria Wien. They recaptured the league title the following season with an 11-point margin over the runners-up. Also, in the 2014–15 season, they won both the Bundesliga and the cup as they did again in the 2015–16 season. In December 2014, the coach Peter Zeidler was dismissed and replaced for the last two matches in the first half of the season by Thomas Letsch. Then Óscar García took over.

Also in the next 2016–17 season, Salzburg won both the Bundesliga and the cup. In 2018, Salzburg lost the cup final against Sturm Graz. At the beginning of the 2017–18 season, Marco Rose became coach after Óscar García left the club. In the UEFA Europa League, Salzburg reached the semi-finals in which they lost to Olympique de Marseille 2–3 on aggregate after extra time, having won during the campaign against Borussia Dortmund and Lazio.

After eleven failed attempts to reach the group stage, Red Bull only managed to qualify directly to the 2019–20 Champions League, since the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League winner, Liverpool, qualified to the competition via their domestic league.[26]

In the years from 2013 to 2019, Salzburg earned €300 million from transfers of players like Munas Dabbur, Xaver Schlager, Stefan Lainer, Hannes Wolf, Diadie Samassekou, Takumi Minamino, Erling Haaland.[27]

In 2021, Salzburg had a transfer balance of €218 million for the last five seasons, behind UEFA Champions League participants Ajax (€242 million) and Benfica (more than €335 million). Salzburg had a positive balance in every year.[28] In the 2020-21 and 2021-22 season they reached both the Championship and the Cup final. In the 2021-22 UEFA Champions League they reached the knock-out stage for the first time. In the round of 16 they played versus FC Bayern München.[29]

In 2009, Red Bull bought an amateur club in Leipzig, Germany and re-named them RasenBallsport Leipzig (so named to circumvent local rules on corporate naming rules) with the aim of establishing a leading branded team in that country[30][31] in a similar mould to its existing franchises in Salzburg and other locations.[32] Over the next decade, Leipzig became the owners' main football project, and the close relationship between the teams was exemplified by the number of players moving between them (Georg Teigl, Marcel Sabitzer, Yordy Reyna and Stefan Ilsanker all transferred from Salzburg to Leipzig) with some of the Austrian fans becoming increasingly annoyed at their best players being signed by the 'step-sibling' club in their mission to climb through the levels of German football.[33][34] There are also links between their youth systems[35] and scouting networks.[36]

Having finished as runners-up in their debut season in the German top flight, RB Leipzig gained entry to continental football for the first time, specifically the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League for which Red Bull Salzburg had also qualified as Austrian champions; this raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest between the clubs due to the level of influence exerted by Red Bull over both teams and the close sporting relationship between them in various aspects.[37][31][38] After examining the operational structures during June 2017, UEFA declared themselves satisfied under their regulations that the two clubs (particularly Salzburg) were suitably independent from the Red Bull corporation, and sufficiently distinct from one another, for both to be admitted to their competitions.[39][40] In the first season following that ruling, both reached the quarter-finals of the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League but did not play each other, with RB Leipzig eliminated by Olympique de Marseille who then also knocked out Salzburg in the semi-finals. However, in the next edition of the same competition, RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg were drawn together in Group B to meet competitively for the first time.[41][42] Salzburg were the victors in both fixtures between the clubs (3–2 in Germany, 1–0 in Austria)[43][44] and also won all their other matches to top the group, while Leipzig failed to progress after dropping further points against Celtic and Rosenborg.[45] On 17 December 2020, Dominik Szoboszlai poised to become the second RB Salzburg player to move to RB Leipzig in space of 6 months after Hwang Hee-chan completed the switch in summer.[46]

Accurate as of 11 October 2022

Legend: GF = Goals For. GA = Goals Against. GD = Goal Difference.

• Q = Qualification
• PO = Play-Off
• QF = Quarter-final
• SF = Semi-final

As of 27 May 2022[47]

Rank	Country	Team	Points
21		FC Salzburg	71.000

As of 1 August 2022[48]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK  GER Nico Mantl 2 DF  BEL Ignace Van Der Brempt 3 DF   SUI Bryan Okoh 4 DF  POL Kamil Piątkowski 6 DF  AUT Samson Baidoo 7 MF  ARG Nicolás Capaldo 8 MF  AUT Dijon Kameri 9 FW  AUT Junior Adamu 10 MF  FRA Antoine Bernède 11 FW  BRA Fernando 13 MF  AUT Nicolas Seiwald 14 MF  DEN Maurits Kjærgaard 15 MF  MLI Mamady Diambou 17 DF  AUT Andreas Ulmer (captain) 18 GK   SUI Philipp Köhn

No. Pos. Nation Player 20 FW  MLI Sékou Koïta 21 MF  CRO Luka Sučić 22 DF  FRA Oumar Solet 23 FW  CRO Roko Šimić 24 MF  MLI Youba Diarra 27 MF  FRA Lucas Gourna-Douath 30 FW  SVN Benjamin Šeško 31 DF  SRB Strahinja Pavlović 33 GK  GER Alexander Walke 39 DF  AUT Maximilian Wöber 40 GK  CZE Adam Stejskal 44 MF  NGA Samson Tijani 70 DF  BIH Amar Dedić 77 FW   SUI Noah Okafor 95 DF  BRA Bernardo

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player — MF  MLI Ousmane Diakité

As of 2 July 2022[49]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player — DF  MLI Daouda Guindo (at St. Gallen until 30 June 2023) — DF  GER Kilian Ludewig (at AaB until 30 June 2023) — MF  GHA Lawrence Agyekum (at FC Liefering until 30 June 2023)

No. Pos. Nation Player — FW  CIV Karim Konaté (at FC Liefering until 30 June 2023) — MF  MLI Mamadou Sangare (at Zulte Waregem until 30 June 2023) — FW  MLI Nene Dorgeles (at Westerlo until 30 June 2023)