Red Bull, an Austrian drinks company created in 1987, has become a worldwide brand heavily involved with sponsoring athletes and a range of different motorsports such as F1 & Rally as well as a number of extreme sports such as snowboarding and cliff-diving which are shown on their TV channel via their website. However this article analyses their involvement with football and this all started because of their founder and chief executive Dietrich Mateschitz. They have 4 football teams: RB Salzburg, RB Leipzig & New York Red Bulls, as well as newly-formed RB Brazil. This study will focus on three of the four teams; RB Salzburg, RB Leipzig and New York Red Bulls.
Red Bull Salzburg
Red Bull Salzburg play in the first division of Austrian football known as the Austrian Bundesliga and have 13 titles to their name. Currently, in the 19/20 season they are in search of their 7th consecutive league win and 14th title.
In 2014, their training base of Red Bull Academy was opened with the motto “Enter the next level”. This has certainly been put into practise with state of the art technology such as an athletics room, high-tech gym, an anti-gravity running track as well as a 360 degree soccer bot and all this is equipped with sensors collecting data about each individual player in order to allow them to cope with the demands of the Red Bull Philosophy that is integrated throughout (Kapella, 2020). A year after the academy opened, 6 academy graduates were in the team that helped RB Salzburg reach the Europa League semi-finals. Star players such as Sadio Mane & most recently Erling Haaland and Takumi Minamino have developed their game via RB Salzburg and then gone on to play in the top 5 leagues of European football with Mane signing for Southampton, Haaland for Borussia Dortmund and Minamino joining Mane at Liverpool.
The Red Bull Philosophy is to integrate a style of play of Pressing, Counter-pressing & quickly switching play from one side of the pitch to the other and the state of the art technology at the academy helps to follow this philosophy by monitoring players because this style of play demands that the players have good levels of fitness and understand each role & responsibility they are given by the manager in order to be successful with using this style of play.
Manager: Jesse Marsch
Formation: 4-2-2-2
Key Players: Szoboszlai, Daka & Hwang hee-chan.
Match: Red Bull Salzburg 3-1 LASK
This is how RB Salzburg lined up for their 3-1 win over LASK. They deploy a 4-2-2-2 formation, with a back four, two defensive midfielders, two centre attacking midfielders and two strikers.
Out of Possession:
When out of possession, RB Salzburg position themselves in a 4-4-2 formation. Each player is individually marked, so when the ball gets shifted from one side to the other, this allows them to hold their positions and press in 1s and 2s. An example of this is that the RM is currently pressing the ball, however if he gets beat then the CM who is free can come across and put in the challenge to regain possession. This puts into practise the Red Bull Philosophy of pressing and counter pressing because the two CMs in Camara and Mwepu can screen the back four, whilst the two attacking midfielders in Szoboszlai and Junuzovic can push on to support the two strikers Daka and Hee-Chan or put the ball over the top for them to run onto as these two have the pace and power to get in behind the opposition back four and score goals.
In Possession
As 4-2-2-2 is an attacking formation, Salzburg have 3 dangermen in Szoboszlai, Daka & Hwang hee-chan. They play direct and attacking football, with short passes to keep hold of possession once they win it back, then instantly hit direct long passes towards the front two who are equipped with plenty of pace and power.
The photo below is a screenshot from their 3-1 victory more recently of LASK. As you can see they are in a 4-2-2-2 formation. The CB has stepped out to win the ball in the air from their striker.
In Possession:
This is an example of the effectiveness of a 4-2-2-2 when attacking, because in the previous photo the CB stepped out to win the ball then played the ball to the CM and the LB has possession of the ball, the then hits a long pass into space for the furthest advanced attacker which is Szoboszlai for them to run onto.
The final image shows that once Szoboszlai ran onto the ball he stood up the defender in a 1v1 and then whipped in a low cross for Daka which he finished comfortably. So this shows that RB Salzburg put the Red Bull philosophy into practice by pressing and then quickly switching the play which in this case was down the left side via the LB and Left CAM for a ball to be played into the advanced attacker for him to finish.
Screenshots from: Factotum Sports (2020).
Red Bull Leipzig
Red Bull Leipzig were founded in 2009, where they entered the 5th division of German football in 2009-10, and earned promotion to the 1st division of German football in 2015-16 and have been there ever since, with the 2019-20 season being their 4th. They qualified for the UEFA Champions League in their first season when they finished second.
Manager: Julian Nagelsmann
Formation: 3-4-3
Key Players: Upamecano,Sabitzer & Werner
Match: RB Leipzig 3-0 Tottenham Hotspur
Here is how RB Leipzig lined up against Spurs for their UEFA Champions League Round of 16 2nd leg. The team consisted of lots of promising young talent with 8 players out of the starting 11 being 24 & under. They lined up with an attacking 3-4-3 formation with 3 CBs, 2 CMs with 2 wing backs and 2 wingers in NKunku & Schick with Werner up top as the main striker.
Manager Julian Nagelsmann follows the Red Bull philosophy of integrating a style of play of Pressing, Counter-pressing & quickly switching play from one side of the pitch to the other. He has taken this and used his own adaptation of a 3-4-3 which is different to RB Salzburg as they used 4-2-2-2 as discussed previously.
In Possession
In possession, RB Leipzig have a 3-4-3 formation as the two wing-backs push on with the LW dropping in narrowly in CM to allow the LWB Angelino to push on and exploit the space in behind the Spurs RB. As shown in the photo the ball carrier has the option to feed the ball to the two players in the middle of the park or play long to the LWB. This is the situation that led to a goal because the ball was fed in behind and the ball got crossed in behind for Sabitzer to head home for Leipzig's second goal of the game. This style of play follows the philosophy of Red Bull because they switched the ball quickly & utilized the space out wide and in behind.
Out of Possession:
Out of possession, RB Leipzig play a 5-2-3 formation as the two wing backs drop alongside the 3 central defenders and form a back five. They use the Red Bull philosophy of a counter press because they catch the opposing players out of position and they are able to then attack and score which starts from the front via the striker and two wingers. This also forces the opposition to play long and they are able to regain possession, once the two CM’s win the ball back, they look to play wide where they can create a 2v1 against the opposing full backs when play is switched quickly. Therefore, the in possession and out of possession style of play that Red Bull Leipzig deploy fits perfectly within the philosophy and Nagelsmann has his players well drilled into using a 3-4-3 and 5-3-2 to execute this effectively.
Screenshots from: Footballia.net (2020)
New York Red Bulls
New York Red Bulls are the third and final Red Bull franchise being analysed. They play in the top division in America which is known as Major League Soccer and have won the MLS Supporters Shield 3 times (awarded to the team with the best record at the end of the season). However they are yet to win the MLS.
Manager: Chris Armas
Formation: 4-2-2-2
Key Players: Casseres Jr, Kaku & Royer
Match: New York Red Bulls 3-2 FC Cincinnati
Manager Chris Armas, deploys a 4-2-2-2 to fit within the Red Bull Philosophy and line up the same way as RB Salzburg as discussed previously. Here is how New York Red Bulls lined up against FC Cincinnati for their MLS 2020 season opener, this consisted of a back 4, 2 CBs, 2 CAM’s and 2 Strikers.
Out of Possession:
Out of Possession New York Red Bulls, are in a 4-3-3 formation and are compact which makes it difficult for the opposition to play through them. They use the counter pressing philosophy as each player in the front three will press the nearest man in order to try and win back the ball to be able to counter attack and score. This also forces the opposition to play long balls which means that the midfield 3 or back 4 can intercept and regain possession.
In Possession
In Possession, the New York Red Bulls are in a 4-2-2-2 formation. When they have the ball they look to play possession football, using short passing in the build up then look to quickly switch play from one side of the pitch to the other and be direct in order to play attacking football. In red are the 2 CM’s and 2 CAM’s and in yellow is Royer who is one of the strikers. Royer drops deep to receive the ball and bring players into the game, once he has the ball the other players run off him and exploit the space to enable them to counter attack and move the ball up the field quickly.
The photo below shows the right back who was brought into play once Royer (pictured in red) switched the ball. He is one of the key players because he can get hold of the ball and make things happen, in doing so a 4 v 3 has now been created because of the direct, counter attacking football and the player on the ball has 3 options: Play left to Royer, play it to the strikers feet or play it down the right to enable the player to make a run in behind. As a result of this move Royer was able to receive the ball, get his shot off and score a goal.
By Jamie Gregory.
References:
● Factotum Sports, (2020). Red Bull Salzburg Vs LASK | Austria Bundesliga | Round 26 (Video) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpufGCzS1Bk.
● Footballia.net (2020) RB Leipzig Vs. Tottenham Hotspur. (online) Available at: https://footballia.net/matches/rb-leipzig-tottenham-hotspur.
● Kapeller, R. (2020) Find Out How The Red Bull Academy's Changing Football. (online) Red Bull. Available at: https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/theredbulletin/red-bull-academy-future-of-football.
● Tran, N., (2020) Live Soccer ; New York Red Bulls Vs. FC Cincinnati (MLS) 3/1//2020. (video) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F8mjINYlE0.