5 players who played for both RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund
As Marcel Sabitzer prepares to face his former side RB Leipzig in a mouthwatering Bundesliga clash with Borussia Dortmund, bundesliga.com looks at the other players that have donned the colours of both clubs...
Having joined Leipzig from Austrian side Rapid Vienna in 2014, Sabitzer spent the 2014/15 season on loan at their rivals, Red Bull Salzburg, where he won the league and cup double before returning to the German Red Bull Arena in 2015. Sabitzer then spent the next six years dazzling the Leipzig faithful with his long-range rockets and delightful range of passing, before departing for spells with Bayern Munich and Manchester United. He left Leipzig with 177 appearances, 40 goals and one Austrian Player of the Year award in his bags.
Having won an EFL Cup alongside former Dortmund star Jadon Sancho at United, Sabitzer returned to the Bundesliga and headed for the Signal Iduna Park ahead of the 2023/24 season. He has since made 75 appearances in all competitions for the Black-Yellows, becoming a midfield mainstay under Edin Terzić, Nuri Şahin and now Niko Kovač. The Austrian has won on each of his last three appearances against former side Leipzig, winning twice with Bayern in the 2021/22 season and once with Dortmund, which was a 2-1 win on Matchday 9 of this season.
Unlike Sabitzer, Kampl made his first Bundesliga appearance in black and yellow rather than white and red. Having come through the ranks at Bayer Leverkusen, Kampl had spells at Greuther Fürth, Osnabrück, Aalen and Salzburg, where he won two Austrian cups and two league titles alongside the likes of former Bayern man Sadio Mané, before joining Dortmund in 2015. His time under the Signal Iduna Park lights was brief, as he made 19 appearances before returning to his boyhood club, Leverkusen.
After two years with Die Werkself, Kampl joined Leipzig in 2017 under current Wolfsburg coach Ralph Hasenhüttl. In his first season at the club, they finished just two points off Dortmund in sixth place, securing European football for the second year running following an incredible second-place finish in the club’s first season in the Bundesliga. Now in his eighth season with Die Roten Bullen, Kampl has two DFB Cup victories and a Supercup to his name, and is an experienced head amongst a young squad chasing Champions League football once more.
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Abdou Diallo
Diallo made a total of 63 Bundesliga appearances across three clubs before departing for Paris Saint-Germain in 2019. He initially joined Mainz from French side Monaco in the summer of 2017, and impressed in his first season in the league, so much so that he joined Lucien Favre’s Dortmund ahead of the 2018/19 season. His first league appearance for them came on the opening day of the season, in a 4-1 home win against future employers Leipzig. Much like his time at Mainz, his sole season in Dortmund was enough to catch the eye of French giants PSG, where he went on to spend four years, picking up a total of eight medals which included two league titles and two French Cup wins.
Sandwiched in between his trophy-laden spell in the French capital was a loan spell at Leipzig in the 2022/23 season. He made a total of 15 appearances for Marco Rose’s side, two of which came in their successful DFB Cup campaign that saw them lift the trophy for a second consecutive year after beating Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0.
Halstenberg spent two years (2011-13) playing for Dortmund II in Germany’s third tier, where he linked up with current Bundesliga stars Jonas Hofmann and Marvin Ducksch, as well as former Germany captain İlkay Gündoğan. Although he didn’t make a senior appearance for them, his time in Dortmund provided the platform for him to eventually make 165 Bundesliga appearances, and win nine caps for Germany.
A successful spell at St. Pauli after leaving BVB earned him a move to Leipzig, then still of Bundesliga 2, ahead of the 2015/16 season. In his first campaign at the club, they earned promotion to the Bundesliga having finished second behind Freiburg. It only got better for Halstenberg, whose form in their debut Bundesliga campaign earned him a first call-up to the national side under Joachim Löw in 2017. Leipzig finished second that year, earning them Champions League football in eye-catching fashion. Halstenberg then returned to his boyhood club, Hannover, ahead of the 2023/24 season after a successful spell at Leipzig, where he won two DFB Cups and represented Germany at UEFA Euro 2020.
Lars Müller
Müller played for Dortmund between 1995 and 1997, and was a part of their 1995/96 Bundesliga winning side. He only made six appearances for the club, before leaving for KFC Uerdingen of Bundesliga 2. Müller racked up over 200 games in the second tier for Uerdingen, Alemannia Aachen and Augsburg, whilst also managing to break 100 appearances in the Bundesliga; 110 of his 116 appearances in the league came for Nuremberg, where he spent five years and won a Bundesliga 2 title in the process.
Having left Nuremberg, Müller joined Leipzig via a spell with Augsburg ahead of the 2009/10 Oberliga-Süd (German fifth tier) season. After 62 appearances for Leipzig in the fifth and fourth tiers of German football, including a Saxony Cup win in the 2010/11 season, Müller joined Hammer SpVg before retiring in 2012. His final club of his career, coincidentally, provided Dortmund with two notable youth products, current Freiburg midfielder Jan-Niklas Beste and talented young left-back Almugera Kabar, part of the current first-team squad under Kovač.
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