Jürgen Klopp, although employed these days by Red Bull as their head of global soccer, confirmed recently that he remains a realist when it comes to the German attitude toward the multinational energy drinks company's football involvement. That doesn't mean he and those charged with making a success of RB Leipzig and the other clubs in their group aren't giving it everything to make it so.
The fact is, RBL have made a deliberate decision to go "back to the roots," as they call it, this season. Yes, their roots may not be deep -- they have been around only since 2009 and in the Bundesliga since 2016 -- but the early Gegenpressing seeds planted by Ralf Rangnick are fashionable again.
The reward for their decision in the summer to return to this style of intensive, emotional football as opposed to the possession-dominated side Leipzig had morphed into, is visibly bearing fruit. Saturday's 6-0 evisceration of Eintracht Frankfurt was only the latest example of Leipzig's claim to be -- right now, anyway -- clearly the second best team in Germany.
It was a six-goal thumping suffered at Bayern Munich on the opening night of the season that catapulted many of an RB persuasion into something of a panic. This was their first league game with new coach Ole Werner in charge, previously with Werder Bremen, and the man from Preetz was not everyone's idea of the perfect fit.
Werner, quiet and youthful with a northern, deadpan style of humor, was perhaps seen by some as insufficiently seasoned for the complexity of navigating the fraught RB environment and its football politics. The truth is, Leipzig have a coach who now matches the club almost as well as anyone who has occupied the job in several years.
In hindsight, that mauling at the Allianz Arena was deceptive. Stars like Xavi Simons and Loïs Openda were on the way out, and not a moment too soon. Marcel Schäfer and the other big football decision makers knew they needed a fresh impulse and fewer egos.
In their early Bundesliga years, RB Leipzig were full of hungry, zestful youngsters trying to put themselves on the map. Schäfer intuitively understood it was time to revisit those days and go Gegenpressing again.
Now the balance feels right. Yes, there is a sprinkling of experience with Péter Gulácsi and Willi Orbán representing the senior guard, but youth is again having its say in attack. In recent games, a pair of 20-year-olds and a 19-year-old have comprised the front three.
At 19, Yan Diomande has made strides surely impossible to visualize a few short weeks ago. His second-half Dreierpack (hat trick) was pure economical destruction, with every goal struck fiercely and precisely without hesitation from far from straightforward angles and positions.
For the statistically minded, Diomande became the second-youngest scorer of a Dreierpack in Bundesliga history.
Leipzig is known as the Heldenstadt (the "city of heroes"), and Diomande already resembles a heroic figure in the making at the Red Bull Arena. That he's in line to play for the Ivory Coast against Germany in Toronto on June 20 at the FIFA World Cup was lost on no one this past weekend.
Another Saturday success story was Denmark striker Conrad Harder. The 20-year-old, signed for around €24 million from Sporting CP, had taken a while to adapt to German football. But against Frankfurt, the "razor was sharp" from the off, needing only five minutes to bag his first goal for the club. Harder's attitude is admirable and work gegen den Ball (without the ball) is most effective.
If I were Denmark coach Brian Riemer, I would be thinking about how Harder could help Denmark negotiate the March playoff phase and reach the World Cup.
The two best outfield Leipzig players for my money this season have been David Raum and Christoph Baumgartner. Raum, at 27, is the perfect captain and revels in his new role. Bundestrainer Julian Nagelsmann has likened him to Kaugummi (chewing gum), meaning he connects with and glues together the entire squad. He touches the ball more than any other player and can be a constant menace in open play on the left or with his devilish set play deliveries.
The Austrian Baumgartner has stepped out of the Xavi-Openda shadows and made the Red Bull Arena stage his own this season. His goal for 2-0, set up Harder on Saturday, made it six league goals for the season. Above all though, Baumgartner exudes confidence again and his all-around game is in fine fettle.
RB Leipzig's defensive solidity gives them the perfect base, and Gulacsi, who would love to continue beyond this season, remains first rate with seven clean sheets and only seven Gegentore (goals conceded) in 12 Bundesliga games since the Matchday 1 thrashing against Bayern.
It raises the question: Can Leipzig keep this up, and are they destined to remain the second-best side in Germany? I think for right now you have to answer both questions in the emphatic affirmative.
They have a few things going for them. One is of course their absence from Europe and hence no Dreifachbelastung (the burden of playing in three different competitions).
We will find out a lot more about Leipzig's durability and credentials in the new year when they face Bayern at home and away in the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, respectively. For now, however, the roots are being well watered and cared for.
Plus, the appointment of the highly qualified Tatjana Haenni as RB Leipzig CEO beginning in January, the first woman in German football to hold such a post, shows a foresight that some of the more traditional clubs would do well to emulate.