By Nick Ames

In the games room at RB Leipzig’s training ground, an ultra-modern facility situated a short walk from the city centre, sits a chessboard. Close at hand are a dartboard and a pool table, offering pursuits more traditionally associated with footballers, but visual evidence suggests chess is no less popular among a squad that has caused shockwaves over the last three months.

It is a long way from being checkmate, but RB Leipzig have outmanoeuvred their Bundesliga opponents in stunning fashion over the first 12 games of the season. They are three points clear of Bayern Munich at the top and, even if it remains a stretch to imagine them remaining there until May, the manner of the club’s ascent suggests they will not be going away any time soon.

Things have happened quickly for a club that, a little over seven and a half years ago, did not exist. That was the intention from the moment Red Bull bought the licence of fifth-tier side SSV Markranstadt in order to begin a new project with a foothold in the German league system, but few could quite have expected the speed at which events have unfolded.

They are certainly not universally popular and when the Schalke 04 goalkeeper, Ralf Fahrmann, said ahead of the sides’ meeting on Saturday that his team intends to “show them what honest and proper Bundesliga football is about” is was not hard to read between the lines. RB Leipzig’s corporate backing and circumventing of the “50+1 rule”, by which German clubs give their members authority when electing the board – they hiked membership costs to €800 – has sparked considerable opposition and protests or boycotts from opposition supporters have been common. In September, Cologne fans blocked the RB Leipzig team coach from reaching their stadium and kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes; earlier that month, Borussia Dortmund supporters’ group boycotted their team’s away fixture in Leipzig.

The list could go on and on but none of it changes the fact that RB Leipzig are winning by doing things their way. The club is keen to point out that local take-up has been spectacular – the 43,000-capacity Red Bull Arena is sold out every week these days and the average attendance as a Bundesliga 2 club last season was just shy of 30,000. The audience is a captive one: football in the old East Germany has enjoyed little success in the last 25 years but the region has historically contained a number of powerhouses and those include Lokomotive Leipzig, a regular feature in European competitions until the fall of the Berlin Wall and Cup Winners’ Cup runners-up in 1987. They competed in the 1993/94 Bundesliga season – finishing last – but went bankrupt in 2004 and now operate in the fourth-tier Regionalliga Nordost. They still have a loyal hardcore of fans, but this is a region that needed little invitation to get behind an upwardly-mobile football setup.

That mobility is overseen by sporting director Ralf Rangnick and manager Ralph Hasenhuttl. Their philosophy is clear and certainly one that might complicate any negative feelings towards the club: their attention is on developing young talent and a team with an average age of just over 24 and a half is the fourth-youngest in Europe’s top five leagues.

That makes this season’s achievements even more noteworthy and the squad – while short of household names – includes a number of stars in the making. Naby Keita, a diminutive 21-year-old midfielder signs from another Red Bull-owned club, Red Bull Salzburg, has been a revelation and scored a superb goal in last weekend’s 4-1 win at Freiburg. Emil Forsberg, the Sweden winger who signed from Malmo last year, has scored five goals and has arguably been the league’s best player so far this season. The 20-year-old Timo Werner, a big-money summer arrival of whom plenty was expected when he came through at Stuttgart, has scored seven times and a call-up for Germany’s senior squad may not be far away.

Oliver Birke arrived from Nottingham Forest int he summer. Credit: PA

Then there is Oliver Burke, who was a surprise signing from Nottingham Forest at the end of August. Burke has largely been limited to substitute appearances so far; he was signed a something of a project for Hasenhuttl, who commented shortly after Burke’s arrival that his defensive “hard drive” was empty and that he needed to learn the ropes for Leipzig’s high-energy, high-pressing style. That style has overwhelmed many of their opponents, who cannot cope with Leipzig’s ferocious energy off the ball and slick, sharp movement with it. When Hasenhuttl managed the Bavarian side Ingolstadt, his team was referred to as the “pressing monster”; add to that some gifted technical players and it is little surprise that, among the predictable shower of plaudits, Arjen Robben has compared his work to that of Pep Guardiola.

Leipzig are challenging the big guns. Credit: PA

Hasenhuttl might not have expected to be fending off Guardiola’s old team, Bayern Munich, at the top of the league just yet. Yet unless their form tails off over the next three weeks their visit to the Allianz Arena on 21 December will be a top-of-the-table clash and could have far-reaching ramifications for the Bundesliga’s title race. It might not be the version of the ‘Clasico’ that Germany wanted but it may be one it must come to terms with: RB Leipzig look like sticking around.