BERLIN — After the worst top-flight season in their history, RB Leipzig underwent a club-wide reckoning, led by new head of football Jurgen Klopp.

The result was a massive summer overhaul, with Leipzig saying goodbye to their entire forward line.

Xavi Simons moved to Tottenham, Benjamin Sesko went to Manchester United and Lois Openda joined Juventus.

When the trio arrived at Leipzig in 2023, they were expected to establish a new period of success in Saxony. They all left without winning a trophy.

“To be honest, maybe we lost a little bit of our DNA,” RB Leipzig sporting director Marcel Schaefer told AFP and other media in September.

After winning a second successive German Cup in 2022-23, it looked like the Red Bull-backed club were finally delivering on the promise that followed their debut promotion in 2016.

The following campaign, however, Leipzig finished fourth, 25 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen.

In 2024-25, Leipzig lost seven of eight matches in the Champions League and finished seventh in the Bundesliga, missing out on European football this season altogether.

The club sacked Leipzig-born mentor Marco Rose—a friend of Klopp’s and the longest-serving coach in their history.

By trying to mimic Europe’s biggest and best, Leipzig had lost their way.

“What makes RB Leipzig so successful?” Schaefer said of the club’s extensive post mortem.

“Red Bull style means high intensity against the ball, high pressing, counter-attacking.

“We cannot change the whole philosophy and say, ‘OK, now we are a team who just wants to play and play, and have possession and possession and possession’.

“We’re not a team like that. It’s not authentic.”

In the summer of 2023, Leipzig had spent 40 million euros ($46.7 million at current exchange rates) on Openda, more than Bundesliga rivals Dortmund or Leverkusen have ever spent on one player

The next summer, Leipzig spent 50 million euros to make midfielder Simons’s loan deal permanent.

In Klopp’s first summer transfer window at the helm, Schaefer said that “the main target was getting back to the roots”.