The Rise of Baum: From Tanzania to Bundesliga Star
She was four when her world shifted for the first time. Tanzania in the rear-view mirror, Germany ahead, a new language, new streets, new pitches. The ball, though, stayed the same.
Shaped by two countries and a family split between continents, Baum had already fallen for football before she left East Africa. She played in the yard with her older brother Dennis, chased his passes, copied his tricks, tried to keep up. She never got the chance to catch him.
Dennis died in a car accident at 17. His absence has followed her into every stadium since.
His initials are stitched on her boots. His name and a quote sit taped to her wrist. A ritual, and a reminder. “That way, he's always with me,” she told Die Welt. “I wish he was here and could see everything I do.”
From the only girl in the team to HSV prodigy
Once in Germany, Baum’s path ran through small-town pitches and boys’ teams. She started at MTV Ahrensbok, then moved to TSV Pansdorf, where she was the only girl in the side. She stayed anyway. She competed, learned, and forced people to adjust their expectations.
Hamburg soon took notice. The club initially shared her with Pansdorf before she fully joined HSV’s academy as a teenager. The step from youth football to the professional game came at startling speed.
In August 2022, at just 15, Baum signed her first-team contract with Hamburg, tying her to the club until 2025. It looked like the start of a long partnership. Instead, it became a launchpad.
By the time that deal expired and she left for RB Leipzig on a free, she had helped drag HSV back towards the elite. Promotion to the second tier came in her first season, then a surge into the Frauen-Bundesliga for the first time since 2012. In the same campaign as that top-flight return, Hamburg also reached the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal. Baum, still a teenager, sat right at the heart of it.
Racing through the national-team ranks
Her rise with club football ran in parallel with an equally rapid climb through Germany’s youth system.
She played for the Under-16s at 14. She was in the U17s at 15. At 17, she featured in all five games as Germany reached the quarter-finals of the U20 World Cup. Recently, she has been a regular with the U23s, even though she is only 19.
Coaches kept pushing her up age groups because she kept coping. Then excelling.
Leipzig’s livewire and a breakout Bundesliga season
Last summer, the queue for her signature grew long. Bayern Munich, the club she supported as a child, wanted her, according to kicker. She turned them down.
Baum chose RB Leipzig, calling it “a fresh start” after four years at Hamburg and pointing to the club’s ambition. Leipzig, only promoted to the Bundesliga in 2023, offered something else as well: opportunity.
This was not a superclub stacked with established stars. It was a side still working out what it could be. That suited her. She needed minutes, not marketing.
She got them. Only three players in the squad logged more league minutes than Baum last season. She repaid that trust by finishing as Leipzig’s joint-top scorer in the Bundesliga, with six goals and two assists from 23 starts. The team ended the campaign 10th in a 14-club league, but the table doesn’t show the fear she put into full-backs.
Her wide play was often devastating. She attacked defenders with a kind of joyful ruthlessness, happy to take them on again and again. Word spread quickly, and with it the transfer rumours.
Arsenal circle as Europe’s giants line up
Now comes the next decision.
Bayern are back in the conversation. Barcelona, the reigning European champions she loves to watch, are interested. Manchester United and London City are in the mix. Lyon, beaten by Barça in last month’s Champions League final, are watching too.
Bild reports that Arsenal currently lead the race. The Gunners have just said goodbye to several players, including England international Beth Mead, who has joined Manchester City. Head coach Renee Slegers needs new threats out wide. In Baum, she appears to have found the exact profile she wants: a direct, fearless winger with room to grow.
Direct, unpredictable, relentless
What jumps out first with Baum is how little she hesitates. She gets the ball and drives. She plays forward, runs forward, thinks forward.
Her speed makes that approach dangerous. Her close control and skill on the ball make it difficult to stop. Crucially, she can use both feet, which scrambles defenders’ reads and makes her movements harder to predict.
She can cut inside and shoot or hold the width and whip in a cross. For a 19-year-old in her first top-flight season, her decision-making is already impressive. There is polish still to come, of course, but the numbers underline her impact: she ranked joint-seventh for chances created in the Bundesliga last season, playing for a side that finished 10th.
Her own goal threat is more than just a by-product of her dribbling. She strikes the ball superbly from range, especially with her left foot, and times her runs into the box with intelligence. Off the ball, she works. She presses hard, sprints to close space, and brings energy to the defensive phase that coaches love to see in a young forward.
That work ethic tallies with how those around her describe her. Marwin Bolz, her coach at Hamburg, called her “determined to improve,” stressing that she chases gains not only in technical areas but in physical conditioning and mental toughness too.
Rough edges, but the right ones
She is far from the finished product. The flaws, though, are the kind that experience usually fixes.
Her pressing, while intense, can be over-eager. She still needs to refine her movements, choose the right triggers, and understand when to hold rather than hunt. That comes with time in a high-level tactical system.
She also has to learn when to slow the game down. Her instinct is to attack, to go straight at opponents, to hurt them in transition. In a side like Leipzig, still establishing itself, that urge is understandable. At a dominant club, there will be moments when she has to recycle possession, help build more patiently, and pick her bursts. Her passing range is good enough that this should develop once she settles in a team that controls matches more consistently.
There are spells when she drifts out of games. That is common among young wingers, whose influence often comes in flashes. As she adapts to the physicality and rhythm of elite football, those gaps should shrink. Remember, this was only her first season in a top division.
Echoes of Kerolin and Paralluelo
Watch her closely and certain comparisons emerge.
Her close control, trickery and insistence on driving at defenders recall elements of Kerolin, the Manchester City forward. Both can operate across the front line. Wherever they start, they look to make something happen, for themselves or for teammates. Baum, a little taller, has the potential to add an extra layer of physical presence to that style.
When she cuts inside and lets fly from distance, there are shades of Salma Paralluelo. The Barcelona star showcased that weapon in the Champions League final, bending in a stunning third goal before adding a fourth. That kind of diagonal, inside-cut strike is becoming a bigger part of Baum’s game too, even if she still carries more of the traditional winger traits than Paralluelo, who has often been used as a centre-forward.
Is Arsenal the right next step?
With only one Bundesliga season behind her, the next move is pivotal.
Arsenal, on paper, present both opportunity and risk. The club has recruited several young talents in recent years but struggled to integrate some of them into the first team. Kathrine Kuhl, Rosa Kafaji and Gio Queiroz are all examples of players whose progress stalled in north London.
Under Renee Slegers, there are signs of a shift. Smilla Holmberg’s development this season hints at a clearer pathway, and Slegers, who took the job permanently in January last year, seems more willing to trust youth when the profile fits.
From a tactical standpoint, the fit is intriguing. Slegers likes to rotate her wide players heavily, both between matches and within them, often switching wingers around the hour mark. That approach could suit Baum. Gradual exposure to the Women’s Super League would ease the jump in level, while the coach’s habit of tailoring her wide selections to specific opponents might give Baum targeted roles that play to her strengths.
But the decision is not straightforward. Barcelona, Lyon and Bayern all have strong records of nurturing young players. London City and Manchester United might be able to offer more guaranteed minutes from day one. Each option pulls in a different direction: prestige, playing time, development environment, emotional ties.
A grounded star in the making
Ultimately, the choice rests with Baum and those closest to her. It is a big call for a 19-year-old, yet nothing about her story suggests she will be overwhelmed by it.
“My goal isn't to be a star, I mainly want to be happy with what I do,” she told Die Welt earlier this year. She played down talk of the next senior World Cup as an immediate target, instead circling the home European Championship in 2029 as a more realistic aim.
That kind of long-term view, anchored by a grounded personality and sharpened by genuine talent, is rare. She carries her brother’s memory on her boots and her wrist. The next club she chooses will help decide how far that shared journey goes.
The question now is simple: which badge will be on her chest when she takes the next step towards the stage she already looks destined to reach?
