Benjamin Sesko: The Man Utd, Newcastle target who is the perfect blend of Haaland and Ibrahimovic

Benjamin-Sesko-Man-Utd-Newcastle

The formula Red Bull use to unearth the next superstar striker for their football franchises is a lot simpler than the one used to concoct their energy drinks.

Erling Haaland’s career took off after Red Bull Salzburg gave him wings in 2019. Now, the point of RB Leipzig’s attack is manned by a young star many consider to be the next super-scoring cyborg off the production line – Benjamin Sesko.

Standing 6ft 5, supremely athletic and able to find the target from anywhere inside 20 yards of goal with robotic regularity – if that all sounds familiar, it’s not by accident.

Haaland and Sesko briefly crossed paths at Salzburg before the towering Norwegian was sold to Borussia Dortmund and then on to Manchester City.

Now, with Sesko starring in the Bundesliga for Leipzig, several of Europe’s biggest clubs are eying the 20-year-old Slovenian in hope of landing Haaland 2.0.

Man Utd and Chelsea have been credited with a long-standing interest in Sesko. And, as TEAMtalk exclusively revealed, Newcastle have ramped up their scouting of the 28-cap international as they weigh up a summer move.

The new Zlatan Ibrahimovic?

“Benjamin Sesko is among the game’s top young talents and has enormous potential to become a top player,” said Christopher Vivell, RB Leipzig’s technical director.

“He has all the qualities to do that. He’s extremely quick, has a great jump on him and is strong in the air. Benjamin is a real goalscorer, who despite his 1.95m (6’4″) is mobile and technically strong. His abilities make him a special player with a special profile.”

And given his physical profile, Sesko made an astute choice as a youngster when selecting a football hero.

“Zlatan Ibrahimovic was my idol,” he told The Guardian last year. “I’m not saying I play like him but he was having fun, enjoying himself on the pitch, doing what he wanted to do. It makes me really happy when I see that kind of player. Every single video I could find, I was looking at him.”

Stylistically, Sesko shares some traits with the iconic Swede. He might not be quite as deftly skilled as the lanky former Man Utd and AC Milan superstar, but there is a similarly impressive delicacy to his touch considering his size.

The 20-year-old’s highlight reel includes a few acrobatic finishes Ibrahimovic would have been proud of, too.

And Sesko is already a more proficient scorer than Ibrahimovic was at the same stage of his career. The 16 league goals the Slovenian scored as a 19-year-old for Salzburg last season is a higher return than the ex-Barcelona and LA Galaxy man posted in any of his four seasons with Ajax. It was not until he joined Juventus, at age 22, that Ibrahimovic matched that tally in a single campaign.

Ibrahimovic was also 22 before he reached double figures for Sweden, something Sesko – with 11 senior goals for Slovenia – has already achieved.

Sesko scored a total of 29 goals and registered 11 assists in 79 appearances for Salzburg before joining sister club Leipzig for €24 million last summer. So far in Germany, he has notched a respectable return of 13 goals and two assists from 37 outings.

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Sesko is more than just goals

For most of the time he shared with Haaland in Salzburg, Sesko was featuring for the club’s youth team. He remembers speaking to the City superstar only once.

He does, however, owe part of his scoring prowess to tips he picked up from watching Haaland in action for the first team. He would study Haaland’s game, but not to the point of wishing to become a clone of the Norwegian.

“It was interesting to look at him because he’s the same height and some movements are the same,” Sesko said. “At this point you think ‘I want to be like him’ but when you start to play a little bit you want to be yourself. But it’s really good to have learned from him and in some ways it has helped me a lot.”

There is more to Sesko’s game than goals, too. The imposing youngster more than pulls his weight when it comes to the off-ball duties demanded of attacking players in a high-pressing system such as Leipzig’s.

According to FBref, his average of 1.47 blocks per 90 minutes ranks in the 99th percentile among forwards in Europe’s five biggest leagues, while he is in the 88th percentile for clearances and the 76th percentile for tackles.

And although Sesko has not yet shown quite the level of productivity in the Bundesliga to match Haaland’s near-goal-a-game ratio for Dortmund, the presence of an eminently affordable – by elite European clubs’ standards, at least – release clause in his Leipzig contract makes him an attractive low-risk, high-upside target.

Physically and figuratively, Sesko is a lot of striker for £43m.