Smilla Baum: From Tanzania to German Football Prodigy

She was four when her life moved continents. Born in Tanzania to a German father and Tanzanian mother, Baum arrived in northern Germany with a ball already at her feet and a shadow already at her back.

Her older brother, Dennis, had been the first to share the game with her. He never saw what she would become. He died in a car accident at 17. She carries him now in the only way she knows how: his initials on her boots, tape on her wrist with his name and a quote. Every sprint, every feint, every shot is a quiet act of remembrance.

“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 on the team to Hamburg’s prodigy

In Germany, the route to the top began on muddy local pitches. Baum first turned out for MTV Ahrensbök, then moved to TSV Pansdorf, where she was the only girl in the team. She stood out quickly enough that Hamburg came calling, and the club soon shared her between Pansdorf and HSV’s academy.

By 15, she was no longer just a promising youth player. In August 2022, Hamburg handed her a first-team contract, tying her to HSV until 2025. It was a statement of faith in a teenager who had barely started secondary school.

She repaid it.

Hamburg had not been in the Frauen-Bundesliga since 2012. With Baum breaking through, the club surged. Her first season brought promotion to the second tier. Then came a charge to the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal and, crucially, a return to the top flight. Across those three years she was not a passenger in a veteran side; she was a driving force in a rebuild.

A fast-tracked international

Her rise with Germany’s national teams has been just as abrupt. Baum played for the Under-16s at 14, the U17s at 15, and by 17 she was on the global stage, featuring in all five matches as Germany reached the quarter-finals of the U20 World Cup.

Now 19, she is a regular with the U23s, already accustomed to playing above her age group, already judged by senior standards.

The club game had to keep pace with that trajectory. Last summer, it did.

The Leipzig leap

When her Hamburg deal ran down, the offers arrived. Bayern Munich – the club she had supported as a child – showed interest, according to kicker. Few teenagers turn down Bayern. Baum did.

She chose RB Leipzig, calling it “a fresh start” after four years in Hamburg and pointing to the club’s ambition. Leipzig had only just been promoted to the Bundesliga in 2023. They were still learning the division, still building, not yet weighed down by a star-studded hierarchy.

For Baum, that mattered. It meant minutes.

Only three players in the Leipzig squad logged more league time than her last season. She started 23 matches, and with that platform she became joint-top scorer in the league for the club, finishing with six goals and two assists in a side that ended the campaign 10th in a 14-team table.

On paper, those numbers are solid. On the pitch, the impression was far louder. Her wide play tore at defences, her dribbling and directness forcing coaches and scouts across Europe to take notice. The transfer links that followed were inevitable.

Europe’s giants circle

Now comes the decision that will shape the next phase of her career.

Bayern are back in the conversation. Barcelona, the reigning European champions and a team Baum has openly said she loves to watch, are interested too. Manchester United, London City and Lyon – beaten by Barça in the Champions League final last month – are also in the frame.

Bild reports that Arsenal currently lead the race.

The Gunners have undergone a clear reset in recent weeks, with several departures and one particularly notable exit on the wing in England international Mead, who has joined Manchester City. Head coach Renee Slegers needs new weapons out wide. In Baum, she appears to see the right profile: young, fearless, relentlessly vertical.

A winger who runs at you, not around you

What makes Baum stand out is not just what she can do with the ball, but how quickly she decides to do it. She is direct in the truest sense. She wants to turn, face her marker and go. No hesitation, no safe sideways pass.

Her pace makes that approach brutally effective. So does her close control and her comfort on both feet. Defenders cannot easily show her inside or outside; either route can end in trouble. She can cut in to shoot or drift into pockets to slide a cross into space. For a 19-year-old, her decision-making is already strikingly sharp.

There is still room to grow. There has to be. Yet she still ranked joint-seventh for chances created in the Bundesliga last season, playing for a team that finished in the bottom half. That says enough.

From distance, she hits the ball with real venom, particularly with her left foot. She times her runs into the box well, reading the game to arrive late into scoring positions. Off the ball, she works. Hard. Her pressing is energetic and honest, the kind of defensive effort coaches demand from modern forwards but do not always get.

Hamburg coach Marwin Bolz once summed her up neatly in the Hamburger Morgenpost: a player “determined to improve” – technically, physically, mentally. Those who have coached her talk about attitude as often as talent.

Edges to polish, not red flags

She is not the finished article. No 19-year-old is.

Her pressing, while enthusiastic, can be over-eager. Learning when to hold, when to jump, and how to press as part of a coordinated unit will come with high-level coaching and repetition.

The same goes for her use of the ball. Knowing when to attack space aggressively and when to slow the game down to help her team build more patiently is still a developing skill. At Leipzig, still finding their feet in the top tier, transition football often felt like the quickest route to survival; her instinct to “go for it” made sense in that context.

There are spells when she drifts out of games, another familiar trait in young forwards still adjusting to the physical and mental demands of elite football. She has only one Bundesliga season behind her. Time and exposure will harden her influence.

None of these issues look structural. They look like details – the kind top clubs back themselves to refine.

Echoes of Kerolin and Paralluelo

Watch Baum closely and certain comparisons come to mind.

There is a touch of Kerolin about her: the close control, the swagger on the dribble, the insistence on driving at defenders from a range of forward positions. Like the Manchester City star, Baum can operate across the front line, always with the same intent – to make something happen.

When she darts inside and unleashes from range, there are shades of Salma Paralluelo too. The Barcelona forward showcased that weapon in the Champions League final, scoring a stunning third before adding a fourth. Baum’s long-range threat is becoming a more regular part of her game, even if she still carries more of the classic winger’s toolkit than Paralluelo, who has often been used centrally.

Crucially, Baum is slightly taller and has the frame to become more physically imposing as she matures. That potential, combined with her agility, gives coaches plenty to work with.

Arsenal’s test – and opportunity

A move to Arsenal would have raised more eyebrows not long ago. The club has signed several talented youngsters in recent years – Kathrine Kuhl, Rosa Kafaji, Gio Queiroz among them – but struggled to integrate them into a settled first team.

This season, though, Smilla Holmberg’s progress has hinted at a shift under Slegers, who only took the job permanently in January last year. The Dutch coach rotates her wide players heavily, both from match to match and within games, often swapping wingers around the hour mark. For a young player like Baum, that kind of managed exposure to the Women’s Super League could be ideal.

The fit looks logical on paper: a squad in need of dynamism out wide, a coach who values rotation and tactical flexibility, and a teenager whose profile aligns with a more aggressive, vertical style.

But nothing is agreed. Barcelona, Lyon and Bayern all offer prestige and a proven track record of nurturing young talent. London City or Manchester United could tempt with the promise of even more guaranteed minutes from day one.

The choice now rests with Baum and those closest to her.

A grounded star in the making

For all the noise around her, she remains disarmingly clear about what matters.

“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 dismissed talk of targeting the next senior World Cup, pointing instead to the home European Championship in 2029 as a more realistic aim.

Long-term thinking. Short-term fearlessness.

She has crossed continents, carried grief, dragged clubs up divisions and raced through national-team age groups, all before her 20th birthday. Now the next decision will determine the stage on which she plays the most important years of her development.

Does she choose the glamour of a superclub, the promise of minutes elsewhere, or the balance Arsenal seem to offer?

Wherever she lands, one thing feels certain: defenders across Europe are about to get very familiar with the name on that taped wrist.