Call it the “Leicester Effect.” A soccer season is a long and arduous creature, capable of taking even the most promising of upstart stories and squashing it under the weight of money and time. We react to teams’ fast starts and fun individual breakout performances, but by May the same teams as ever top a given table, and the same players occupy the collective Best XI lists.
Some breakthroughs remain broken through, however. Lille won Ligue 1 last year, after all, and every young superstar, from Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland on down the list, was once a mere up-and-comer.
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With more than three months gone in the 2021-22 campaign, certain upstarts appear more sturdy than others. If you’re looking for a new hipster-friendly team to follow, or you’re wondering which hot, young prospects appear most likely to turn into hot, young stars, look no further. It’s time to buy in on the list below and even if they eventually fall just short or let us down, we’re going to enjoy ourselves along the way.
Jump to: FC Salzburg | Ajax | Amine Gouiri | Union St. Gilloise | Lorenzo Pellegrini | UEFA Europa Conference League | West Ham | Reece James | Real Sociedad | Jonathan David | Jude Bellingham | Vinicius Jr.
Say this much for the Red Bull conglomerate: They’re a patient bunch. Sometimes they strike gold, as they have in Brazil, where Red Bull Bragantino went from a third-division club in 2018 to the first division in 2020, and borderline top-four and Copa Sudamericana runner-up in 2021. But in Europe they have long since accepted that their projects take a while. RB Leipzig’s rise in Germany certainly proved that, but so has that of the sister club in Salzburg.
Speaking of those EloFootball ratings referenced above, the club formerly known as SV Austria Salzburg averaged a ranking of 242nd in the five years before Red Bull got involved in…
Source : espn
