Report: Liverpool in battle to sign Red Bull Salzburg striker Karim Adeyami

This little mother fucker score two pens last night, is he the new Suarez or something. Get him signed.

He was very good. Lille could not deal with him. 

On 09/09/2021 at 14:11, Bjornebye said:

Whose our Swiss Super League guy? 

I thought it was you. Or are you only the Norwegian Super League guy?

Honigstein in The Athletic reckons we already missed the chance to snap him up for buttons. 
 

There’s an uncomfortable pause at the other end of the line. Janusz Gora is playing for time. “Well,” the ex-Poland international says, weighing up his possible replies, “the player he most reminds me of…” He stops himself. The 58-year-old knows he’s not doing Karim Adeyemi any favours by answering this question honestly. But he’s not going to lie either.

“You know who he reminds me of, in his movements?” he says, taking another deep breath. “Lionel Messi. The way he glides inside from the right onto his strong left foot with quick little turns.”

He laughs.

Comparing the 19-year-old Red Bull Salzburg striker to the best player of all time feels way over the top, preposterous even. Yet here we are. Gora, a former defender with Stuttgarter Kickers and TSV Ulm, has seen many players come through as a youth coach at Salzburg (under-16s) and their feeder team FC Liefering in the second Austrian division. But not many left as big an impression on him as the 16-year-old boy who turned up in the summer of 2018.

“You could immediately see that he was special, an incredible talent, fast, good technique, explosive on the ball,” Gora recalls. “Even though he played against grown men with Liefering, he was the sort of player who decided games, with a goal or an assist. As a coach, you knew there was something about this kid.”

Salzburg felt the same. They had paid €3 million to SpVgg Unterhaching, a third division side on the outskirts of Adeyemi’s hometown Munich to take him across the border. Unlike in Germany, where under-17 players can only feature in adults games with special permission, there are no such restrictions in Austria. The plan was to give him game time with the seniors at Liefering and then promote him to Salzburg in a year or two. And that’s exactly what happened. Thirty-one starts and 15 goals later, he moved up to Jesse Marsch’s team in March 2020.

The American carefully integrated the young centre-forward. Adeyemi was behind Mergim Berisha (now at Fenerbahce), Sekou Koita and Patson Daka (now at Leicester City) in the pecking order up front but he did enough to convince the club that he could lead the line in the current season. In a double-pronged attack next to Benjamin Sesko, Adeyemi has scored seven goals in nine games for the Austrian champions. The secret was definitely out when he was called up by Germany earlier this month and scored on his debut against Armenia.

Adeyemi scored on his Germany debut (Photo: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images)

The 19-year old son of a Nigerian father and Romanian mother also made his mark in match-day one of the Champions League. He became the first player in the competition to win three penalties in one game in the 1-1 draw over with Sevilla. The Spaniards hadn’t been able to deal with his runs into the box. A missed penalty at the Sanchez Pizjuan did somewhat spoil his first start in the Champions League but there was no doubt that he was going to be one of the most watchable youngsters in this year’s tournament.

His second match in the competition last night yielded two goals, both from the penalty spot, as Salzburg beat Lille 2-1 to go top of Group G. Adeyemi was a constant headache for Lille’s defence, and it was the forward that drew the foul from Sven Botman for the first spot kick.

You’ve read this story before. Salzburg scout a teenager in some rather obscure place, develop him in their vertically integrated football group for a couple of years and get the biggest clubs in the world excited. What’s different about Karim, however, is that he had already played at one of those giants as a child. Aged eight, he was snapped up by Bayern Munich after the German record title-holders had seen him play for his local club TSV Forstenried at an indoor tournament.

They loved his creativity at Saebener Strasse but the emphasis on schoolwork in German academies created problems. Adeyemi, by his admission, found it hard to concentrate in school and often blamed the teachers for his poor grades. Bayern eventually lost patience with him two years later. Sources in Munich say there was an altercation with a team-mate but Adeyemi denies ill-discipline was the reason he was let go. “Things simply didn’t work out with me and Bayern,” he told Goal.

That might have been the end of it. The disappointment and stigma of having been kicked out by Bayern might have disheartened a less talented player but Adeyemi’s natural skills helped him get a second chance. Unterhaching chairman Manfred “Manni” Schwabl, a former Bayern midfielder, signed him up and made it his mission to fulfil the boy’s immense potential. Adeyemi wasn’t allowed to train unless he did his homework.

At some stage, things clicked. He became a conscientious teenage footballer, eager to learn on and off the pitch. Shortly after he turned 16, Chelsea scout Vito Leccese invited Karim, his family and Schwabl to come to Cobham for a week. Karim held his own but all three parties harboured doubts that moving to London was the best next step for him. A trip to Liverpool didn’t prove productive either.

The English clubs felt that Unterhaching were holding out for a big sum. And they were. The €3 million transfer fee they received from Salzburg — a record sum for a German 16-year-old — went some way to help renovate the Osttribune (east terrace) in the club’s 15,000-capacity Sportpark ground. “We should name the terrace after Karim,” Schwabl told Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Perhaps they will, one day.

They are aware in Salzburg that offers are likely to come this January. A €15 million bid from Barcelona was turned down a year ago. Now he’s worth double that amount, at least. A few more goals in this year’s group stage will see a similar frenzy to the one that surrounded Erling Haaland’s move from Salzburg to Borussia Dortmund in January 2020.

(Photo: Juergen Wassmuth/DIENER/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

Could history repeat itself? BVB manager Marco Rose knows Adeyemi from his time in Austria but that might not be enough to fend off RB Leipzig, who tend to have first dibs on Salzburg players. Bayern are still keeping an eye on the player, too. He’s talked about going back to the Bavarian capital in the past but his mentor Schwabl believes that England will be his “natural destination” eventually.

Whoever wins the race won’t just sign an extremely promising prospect but a lovely guy, too, by all accounts. “Karim was a great boy who integrated quickly and always listened,” Gora recalls. “I’m happy that I was able to coach a player like him. He’s on the right path and can still get so much better.”

Adeyemi’s positive and humble behaviour with the German national team won him praise from team-mates and the coaching staff as well last month.

No, Adeyemi won’t be Munich’s answer to Messi, but if he continues to improve at this rate, he’ll be a pretty big name in his own right in no time.