Benjamin Sesko could have become a basketball player, but he’s expected to be among Europe’s most sought-after players this summer.
Benjamin Sesko, a future Slovenian superstar with the world at his feet, has become one of Europe’s most sought-after young football players during the last two years.
The forward for RB Leipzig, who turned 21 at the end of May, has been linked to Arsenal and Chelsea. When he was a young star at Salzburg, Manchester United attempted to snare him from the Red Bull stable.
Sesko has always been known to have talent. He has already made nearly 200 senior appearances for the Slovenian national team, Leipzig, Salzburg, and FC Liefering, the sister team of Salzburg.
Sesko loves hoops basketballs. After relocating to Leipzig last summer, he erected a court in his backyard and became a fan of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, whose standout player is his fellow countryman Luka Doncic.
In his earlier years, a video of him doing a superhuman athletic feat—using his foot to remove a basketball that had become lodged between the basket and the board—became popular on social media.
Even though he is just 6 feet 4 inches tall, he has the body of a shooting guard in the NBA. Tall and thin by nature, Sesko Jr. was encouraged to play goalkeeping by his father Ales when he was younger. Ales was a former shot-stopper for Slovenian team NK Radece.
It seems sense that he disregarded such advise given his later development as a center-forward, and his record-breаking scoring streak in the middle of Sesko’s midteen years effectively sealed his decision to pick football over hoops.
When Sesko scored 59 goals in 23 games for NK Krsko’s U15s in the 2017–18 season, his achievements at the youth level drew national notice.
With us, Benji was essentially unstoppable. When he had the ball at his feet, he was not amusing at all, despite the fact that his long legs and plump posture made him appear a little weird. Recalling is Rok Zorko, sporting director of Krsko.
He would play basketball and football on the streets for hours on end. He was not even close to developed yet, but he was lightning fast, had a long stride, and could shoot well with both feet.
“During his two years on our team, he scored over 100 goals in every game. Undoubtedly, this is a record [for us]. At that age, he may have also broken every record in Slovenia.
At Domzale, Sesko kept moving forward, reaching yet another fork in the path. Sesko turned down offers from a number of elite teams when he was sixteen, including Manchester City, Bayern Munich, and Ajax, in favour of completing his football studies in Salzburg.
Sesko was loaned to FC Liefering as soon as the contract’s ink dried, as is customary for the majority of prodigies who visit Salzburg.
Liefering are the European equivalent of Salzburg, a finishing school for the best, giving students a chance to improve their talents in a competitive setting. Liefering, with an average age of 18.9 years, placed sixth out of 16 clubs in Austria’s second division previous season.
Kircher says, “For Benji, this was the ideal scenario.” “It helped him to be patient because he had the option to transfer to larger clubs at the time than Red Bull Salzburg.” But you can get better at professional football by taking these little measures.
“Everything is more intimate and smaller [here]. Salzburg is a city that is quite intimate. He was therefore in a nice community and a decent society to support him.
Following two years of education in Liefering, Sesko was considered prepared to advance to Salzburg. During his two years in their first squad, he won back-to-back Austrian crowns, a domestic cup, and the Slovenian me𝚗’s player of the year award.
Compared to some of his predecessors, a return of 29 goals in 79 games for a team that has dominated Austrian football over the past ten years may appear unimpressive. In just 27 games, Erling Haaland, for example, scored 29 goals for the team.
Despite this, Kircher believes that Sesko is the most talented player he has seen at Salzburg because of the range of his abilities. Sesko’s height, power, and close control have made him resemble his idol Zlatan Ibrahimovic, while Haaland’s explosive acceleration has made him resemble him as well.
Kircher remarks, “His speed, technical skills, and attitude towards football are really extraordinary, even though he’s really, really tall.” “You wouldn’t expect this kind of football player to do things in training.
Of sure, Erling is fantastic, but Benji is a more skilled player. He is without a doubt Salzburg’s best [talent]. There have been numerous additional players. Erling, Sadio Mane, and Dominic Szoboszlai were present, but he’s undoubtedly at the top with a few others, let’s sаy.
The next obvious step in Sesko’s career was to join Leipzig, controlled by Red Bull, which would put him in a league similar to Salzburg but expose him to a greater calibre of football. Leipzig is one of Europe’s “big five” leagues.
Like Salzburg, Sesko was allowed some time to adjust. For the first half of 2023–24, Marco Rose primarily utilised him as a substitute. However, in the New Year, he was unleashed with the prolific Belgian Lois Openda, with ammunitiоn provided by Dani Olmo and Xavi Simons.
At the close of the Bundesliga season, Sesko scored goals in seven straight games, capping a stellar campaign. Just seven players in the division scored more than his total of 14, eleven of which came after January 27.
The supporters of Slovenia will be hoping that he can continue that form throughout the Euros, leading their team—which also includes Denmark, Serbia, and England—to the round of 16.
Unavoidably, Premier League interest has rekindled because of that purple patch. Given their improving trajectory under Mikel Arteta, Arsenal are supposedly the front-runners to sign Sesko. Rumours were further stoked by the fact that Sesko’s agent, Elvis Basanovic, attended the Emirates last season.
As they have both prioritised buying younger players in previous transfer windows, Chelsea and Tottenham—two other London teams anticipated to be in the market for a striker this summer—will undoubtedly be keeping an eye on Sesko.
However, it might be challenging to get him out of Leipzig this summer, particularly now that Rose’s team has qualified for the Champions League the following year. Leipzig will be hesitant to lose a player with such promise after just one season because they are aware of their position in the football food chain.
On the other hand, a player who has meticulously plotted his route to the top seems to have the Premier League as his next natural destination. The physical and technical characteristics of Sesko would be ideal for English football. Considering how his career has gone thus far, whoever gets him might have an easy time winning.