It was already after midnight when Domenico Tedesco, who often seemed a bit too matter-of-fact, was interrupted in his dry lecture with a cold beer shower. The players of the new DFB Cup winner stormed the press conference and first got their coach wet. Just like football professionals do, after such a victory in such moments.

And for Rasenballsport Leipzig, Saturday evening offered the greatest moment in a young club history. Even if the success against SC Freiburg in the Berlin Olympic Stadium wasn’t exactly a footballing landslide: For RB Leipzig it was a success that was still missing.

It certainly wasn’t the huge hit that they are aiming for with the initiator of this project, which started in 2009, but a title as a big consolation. So far, the Saxons had often failed just before the gates closed. In the Europa League they recently had to pass in the semi-finals (like in 2020 in the semi-finals of the Champions League), they had lost two finals in the DFB Cup and in the Bundesliga they have been trying in vain since the 2016/2017 season to get the undefeatable from To displace FC Bayern from the top – with the tendency to decrease the chances of success.

What is amazing about the sporting success in Leipzig is the continuity in the team. Team captain Peter Gulacsi and the Swede Emil Forsberg have been in the team for seven years, the Dane Yussuf Poulsen, who did not play in the final, has even been there since 2013.

Such loyalty to the club is not common in professional football, and it was well paid in Leipzig from the start. And of course it’s pointless to attribute any romance to the RB Leipzig project, it doesn’t exist. However, it hardly exists at the top of all men’s professional football. The women also hardly get a chance to develop, as the final of the Champions League on Saturday between the battered teams from Barcelona and Lyon showed. Football is a business.