On 18th March 2018, Red Bull Leipzig beat Bayern Munich for the first time in their history. Goals from Timo Werner and Liverpool bound Naby Keita secured the win which ended Bayern’s 19 match unbeaten run but, as the final whistle sounded, it was not the goal scorers that manager Ralph Hasenhüttl ran to embrace but the goal preventers – with a combined age of just 37 at the time, it was the centre back pairing of Dayot Upamecano and Ibrahima Konaté that had limited Bayern to just one goal and condemned them to a first defeat in four months.

Of the pair, Upamecano is the senior of the two. With nearly three seasons of senior football already under his belt, he is already seen as the leader of the Red Bull Leipzig defence, despite only recently turning 20 and having club captain Willi Orban to compete with at the back. The younger defender’s leadership skills are attested to by Konaté who stated last year: ‘I’ll never forget how [Upamecano] helped me in my first training sessions, so I could settle in quickly’.

Despite not being the physical monster that many modern centre-backs are nowadays (*ahem* Niklas Süle), Upamecano still stands at an impressive 6’1”. What he may lack in height however, he certainly makes up for in bravery and aggression within the tackle and in the air – when watching him play it is not rare to see the opposition striker crumple to a heap because of the French defender. Impressively though Upamecano, whilst still being a huge physical presence at the back, has rapidly learnt the distinction between legal and illegal aggression. Whilst in his first season at senior level (with Red Bull Salzburg in Austria) he picked up eight yellow cards and two reds, his disciplinary numbers have now dropped – this season he has accumulated four yellow cards but crucially hasn’t received his marching orders once. As imposing as Upamecano is however, his most impressive attribute is not his strength, but his pace. With him on the pitch it seems no attacker, however quick, can break away and find themselves with space and time to shoot. Even if Upamecano fails to get a foot in and dispossess them, he knows how to apply pressure, force them out wide and put them off making a clean finish. As Bundesliga teams are transitioning towards utilising faster, more direct players in their attacking positions, this attribute will only become more valuable for Upamecano – presuming he stays in the German top flight.

Unsurprisingly given his defensive talents and leadership qualities at such a young age, Upamecano has found himself with many suitors across Europe. January 2017 was the first time he was linked with a mega move away with a £98million transfer to Manchester United reported in some quarters. Admittedly this amounted to nothing and can probably be dismissed as rumour mill fantasy but nevertheless it got the word out about the then-18-year-old. Slightly over a year later it was Barcelona who were linked with Upamecano. This time the news, reported by AS, seemed a little more credible. With over a season of Bundesliga football under his belt and Barca in need (and still in need, presuming Frenkie de Jong is played in his preferred position in midfield rather than the heart of defence) of a young defender to replace Piqué in the heart of their defence, the €100million links for the young defender didn’t seem totally far-fetched – especially given that last season Upamecano made more passes than any other teenager in Europe’s top five leagues (though the vast majority of these were short passes into the midfield – do not expect defence-splitting, no-look passes à la David Luiz for a few years yet…). Certainly, as Upamecano continues to develop and impress in the Bundesliga a move looks to be more a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. He already looks to have all the defensive attributes required to be a top defender – if he could become a consistent goal threat from set pieces (he hasn’t scored yet this season but managed three last term) and also develop his long passing attributes a little more, he could easily become one of the world’s very best.

But what of his more junior, and less well-known partner, Ibrahima Konaté? Signed from French club FC Sochaux with just 13 second flight appearances to his name in July 2017, surely no one, including him, could have predicted that by the 2018/19 season he would have largely replaced club captain Willi Orban as Upamecano’s partner at the back. It was last term that he got his big break as Orban suffered an injury hit campaign. In his 16 appearances that campaign, most impressively in Leipzig’s victory over Bayern, Konaté showed that he was ready for top flight football. Consequently, Orban has seen his playing time this season fall from over 2000 Bundesliga minutes last season (in a campaign riddled with injury problems), to 871 minutes at this season’s halfway point – 130 minutes less than Konaté and over 200 less than Upamecano.

Konaté is a defender in a similar mould to Upamecano – indeed their defensive stats are eerily similar. Upamecano has managed 1.25 tackles per 90 minutes to Konaté’s 1.67. Their interceptions numbers per 90 are identical at 2.42 whilst Konaté wins marginally more aerial duels with 3.67/90 compared to Upamecano’s 3.42 – this is probably due to Konaté standing 3 inches taller than his defensive partner at 6’4”. At the moment though, Konaté is something of a limited defender – as with Upamecano, the addition of goals and an improvement to his passing could help him reach the top echelons of the game however Konaté’s issues are more pronounced; his passing accuracy of just 74% could see him struggle to perform for Europe’s top teams who are increasingly looking to build from the back (Upamecano’s passing accuracy of 81%, whilst not stellar, is more passable). It is of course worth remembering though that he is still only 19 and there is plenty of time to work on such issues – the foundations of a great defender are already there.

As a pair they have succeeded in forming the most water-tight defence within the Bundesliga, leaking just 17 goals in as many games so far. What’s more, the pair share a strong connection on the pitch. As Konaté aptly states ‘if one of us gets into trouble, the other is there to help out’. Sadly though, the pair may have been too successful. It is not unlikely that in the summer one, or both of them, will make transfers elsewhere. Barcelona have already been strongly linked with Upamecano and Manchester United and Bayern are likely to be on the prowl for a new, young centre-back. They could both do a lot worse that looking towards Leipzig to satisfy this need.