When Red Bull link up with a football club, they don’t just settle for a name on a shirt or a token stadium name change that all the fans ignore anyway. They engulf everything about a club and its history that isn’t Red Bull branded and they destroy it. That isn’t hyperbole.
Join Leedsista to keep reading this and many more articles, free
I didn't do this game. But it's a chance to take a look and take stock of the club behind the show.
As Red Bull's energy football goes out of style, it's leaving frantic, effervescent players like Brenden Aaronson marooned on uncertain, shifting terrain, trying to learn what RB never taught them.
The advantage fans have is that everything in football, whether it's comms or money or community, must ultimately be expressed with high visibility on grass.
To look at Archie Gray playing for Leeds was to see a golden era come back, to forget all the market forces crushing modern football and feel the glorious 1960s and 70s again. A smiley badge on the away kit next season won’t do that the way Archie Gray could do that.
The best argument for convincing ourselves that Red Bull won't change Leeds United's name or colours is the weight of our heritage, but it is also the danger.