Smilla Baum: Rising Star of Women's Football

She was four years old when her life changed for the first time. Born in Tanzania to a German father and a Tanzanian mother, Baum left East Africa for northern Germany with a ball already at her feet and a shadow already on her shoulder.

That shadow was her older brother, Dennis. Her first team-mate. Her first opponent. The teenager who would never get the chance to grow old with her. He died in a car accident at 17, a loss that still frames everything she does. His initials are stitched onto her boots, his name and a quote wrapped around her wrist in tape every time she plays.

"That way, he's always with me," she told Die Welt. She wishes he could see what that little sister has become.

From the only girl to HSV’s prodigy

Germany brought structure to that raw obsession. Baum started out at MTV Ahrensbök, then moved to TSV Pansdorf, where she was the only girl in the team. She stayed anyway. She competed. She learned how to survive in a boys’ environment that rarely gives away respect for free.

Hamburg noticed. HSV’s academy took her in as a teenager, and by August 2022, still only 15, she had a first-team contract in front of her. She signed, tying herself to the club until 2025 and stepping into a senior dressing room years ahead of schedule.

What followed was not a token role. Baum became central to Hamburg’s climb back towards the top. In her first season, HSV won promotion to the second tier. The momentum kept building: a run to the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal and then, crucially, promotion back to the Frauen-Bundesliga for the first time since 2012.

By the time her contract expired and she left on a free for RB Leipzig, her fingerprints were all over Hamburg’s revival.

Fast-tracked through Germany’s ranks

While she was climbing the club ladder, Germany’s national coaches were fast-tracking her too. Baum played for the Under-16s at 14. The U17s at 15. At 17, she featured in all five games as Germany reached the quarter-finals of the U20 World Cup.

Now 19, she has already become a regular with the U23s. The pathway is obvious; the senior team feels less like a dream and more like an inevitability, even if she herself is in no hurry to rush it.

A bold move to Leipzig

Last summer, Baum became one of the most coveted teenagers in Europe. Bayern Munich, the club she grew up supporting, wanted her, according to kicker. That alone would have been enough to turn most young heads.

She turned towards Leipzig instead.

She talked about needing “a fresh start” after four years at Hamburg and pointed to Leipzig’s ambition. But the sporting logic was just as compelling. RB Leipzig, only promoted to the Bundesliga in 2023, are still establishing themselves in the top flight, not drowning in superstars. Game time was there to be won.

She grabbed it. Only three players in the squad logged more league minutes than Baum last season. In her first year in the Bundesliga, in a team that finished 10th out of 14, she ended as RB Leipzig’s joint-top scorer with six goals and two assists from 23 starts.

The numbers are strong. The impression she left was stronger.

Her wide play tormented full-backs. She drove at defenders relentlessly, beat markers in one-on-one duels and forced teams to tilt their defensive structures towards her flank. The transfer links that followed were inevitable.

Arsenal circle as Europe watches

One season in the top flight was all it took to pull the elite into orbit. Bayern are back in the conversation. Barcelona, the reigning European champions she has admitted she loves to watch, are interested. Lyon, beaten by Barça in the Champions League final last month, are there too. So are Manchester United and London City.

Bild reports that Arsenal currently lead the race.

North London has been busy saying goodbye. A cluster of players have departed in recent weeks, with England international Beth Mead’s move to Manchester City the most high-profile exit out wide. Head coach Renee Slegers needs new weapons on the flanks. Baum fits the profile almost perfectly.

Direct, fearless, unpredictable

What hits you first when you watch Baum is how little she hesitates. She takes the ball and goes. Straight at you. No half-measures.

She wants to push her team up the pitch as quickly as possible and has the tools to make that intent count. She is quick, sharp over the first few metres and comfortable going either way. Her close control and skill allow her to slalom through tight spaces, and her two-footedness makes her a nightmare to read.

She can cut inside and shoot. She can hold the angle, hit the byline and cross. For a teenager, her decision-making is already surprisingly mature. There is room for refinement, of course, but the foundations are sound. Ranking joint-seventh for chances created in the Bundesliga last season, in a side that finished 10th, speaks loudly enough.

Her own goal threat is not an afterthought. She strikes the ball superbly from range, particularly with her left foot, and has a knack for arriving in dangerous areas at the right moment. Out of possession, she works. Hard. She presses with real energy and an eagerness to engage, traits coaches at the highest level demand from modern forwards.

Marwin Bolz, her coach at Hamburg, once described her as “determined to improve,” highlighting not just her technical work but her commitment to physical conditioning and mental toughness. That drive underpins everything.

Rough edges that time will sand down

She is 19. Naturally, there are flaws.

Her pressing, while enthusiastic, can be a little scattergun. She still needs to learn when to angle runs, when to sit in, when to trigger pressure as part of a collective rather than on instinct alone. That nuance will come with better coaching and more time at the elite level.

The same applies to her decision over when to be direct and when to slow the game. At Leipzig, a club still finding its feet in the division, transition moments are gold dust, and Baum understandably wants to attack them at full tilt. In a dominant side, there will be times when she has to recycle possession, help build patiently and choose the moment to explode.

She has the passing ability to do that. She just needs repetition, and a team that lives in the opposition half will give her plenty.

There are spells when she drifts out of games. That is not unusual for young wide forwards adjusting to the physical and mental demands of top-level football. As her body adapts and her understanding deepens, those quiet periods should shrink.

Echoes of Kerolin and Paralluelo

Watch her long enough and certain comparisons creep in. Her tight control, the tricks in traffic, the insistence on driving at defenders bring to mind Kerolin, the Manchester City star, who also thrives across multiple attacking roles and treats every possession as a chance to make something happen.

Baum, slightly taller, has the frame to become more physically imposing over time.

Then there are the moments when she cuts inside and whips a shot from distance. There, the resemblance is to Salma Paralluelo of Barcelona, who underlined her own threat from those zones with a stunning brace in the Champions League final. That pattern – outside, inside, strike – is becoming a bigger part of Baum’s repertoire too, even if she still carries more of the classic winger traits than Paralluelo, who has often been used centrally.

Is Arsenal the right step now?

For all the excitement, this is still a player with just one Bundesliga season behind her. The next move will define the arc of her early career.

Not long ago, Arsenal might have been a risky landing spot for a teenager. The club signed several young talents in recent years – Kathrine Kuhl, Rosa Kafaji, Gio Queiroz – and struggled to integrate them into a consistent first-team role. But Smilla Holmberg’s development this season suggests the picture is changing under Slegers, who only took the job permanently in January last year.

From a squad-building perspective, Baum would slot neatly into Arsenal’s approach. Slegers likes to rotate her wingers, both game to game and within matches, often making changes around the hour mark. That managed exposure to the Women’s Super League could suit a 19-year-old still learning the rhythms of elite football. Her tendency to pick wide players based on the specific demands of each fixture might also give Baum targeted opportunities to exploit certain opponents.

Yet nothing is signed. Barca, Lyon and Bayern can all offer prestige and proven pathways for young players. London City or Manchester United could counter with the promise of heavier minutes from day one.

The decision sits with Baum and those closest to her. It is the biggest of her career so far, but everything about her profile suggests a calm head on young shoulders.

“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 brushed off talk of the next senior World Cup as a target, instead pointing to the home European Championship in 2029 as her horizon.

Long-term thinking. Grounded ambition. A winger who plays with fire but chooses with patience.

Wherever she lands next, defenders across Europe may soon find Dennis’s initials flashing past them, carved into the boots of a player who looks built for the biggest stage.