Over the past couple of weeks, Total Football Analysis has brought out in-depth player analysis articles on two of the best up-and-coming holding midfielders in the world today: Aleksandar Pavlović at Bayern Munich and Chema Andrés at VfB Stuttgart.
Aged 21 and 20 years old, respectively, the pair of midfielders are two of the brightest rising stars in the Bundesliga this season.
This scout report caps off our search for young holding midfielders in the German top-flight, as we take a trip north east of Stuttgart and Munich to Red Bull Arena, where we’ll examine 24-year-old Nicolas Seiwald at RB Leipzig.
Seiwald is a pure Red Bull product, having come through the ranks at Red Bull Salzburg from his childhood before moving to FC Liefering in 2019.
The Austria international spent a year and a half at Liefering before joining the Red Bull Salzburg first-team.
Three years later, he made the move to the German Bundesliga with RB Leipzig in a €20m transfer.
This Nicolas Seiwald scout report examines the Austrian midfielder’s style of play and outlines what the ideal tactical setup is for the now €18m-valued midfielder, per Transfermarkt, as well as explaining why he may represent the best value of the three Bundesliga midfielders we’ve analysed in this series.
Nicolas Seiwald Stats
Nicolas Seiwald has started all but one of RB Leipzig’s games in all competitions so far this season, while he was also a highly prominent figure in the squad last term, very rarely sitting out matches and spending very little time sidelined through injury.
At 24 years of age, Seiwald already has 44 Austria caps under his belt, further highlighting the vast experience the midfielder has accumulated in his relatively young career thus far.
As was the case with Pavlović and Andrés, we’ve generated percentile ranks for Nicolas Seiwald across several custom-built metrics created from Wyscout’s raw metrics to help analyse holding midfielders who have played at least 400 minutes in one of Europe’s top five leagues so far this season.
Nicolas Seiwald Percentile Ranks 2025/2026
Taking a look at the data in Figure 1, Seiwald profiles as a fairly balanced, two-way holding midfielder, not quite as much of a pure traditional holding midfielder as Chema Andrés, but certainly closer to that than the modern single pivot profile of Aleksandar Pavlović.
Seiwald puts up above-average numbers in almost all metrics, giving him a very well-rounded profile.
He’s particularly elite without the ball in terms of defensive discipline, reliability, and activity.
In possession, Seiwald’s profile is dominated by his vertical intent, with a strong percentile ranking in verticality index and progressive distribution, as well as a decent score in line-breaking index and final-third access.
Seiwald’s above-average scores in ball retention index and press resistance score tell us that he’s solid but not elite at receiving the ball and protecting it under pressure.
Unlike FC Bayern’s Aleksandar Pavlović, he doesn’t thrive receiving the ball under pressure; he’s not a ‘possession sponge’.
He doesn’t constantly make himself available to soak up large volumes of possession and doesn’t dominate the build-up through volume and control.
His involvement with the ball is purposeful.
When he receives, he tends to get his head up and look to play forward early and decisively.
Seiwald’s low scores come in dribble escape score, carry vs pass balance, and fouls-to-pressure ratio.
Essentially, he doesn’t typically escape pressure via dribbles, drawing fouls, or physical protection of the ball, preferring to do so via progressive passes if it’s possible for him to play one or simple short passes if not.
To compare Seiwald to the other two profiles analysed in recent weeks, he’s more vertical and proactive on the ball than Andrés, though not as strong defensively or secure on the ball, while he’s much more defensively reliable than Pavlović but less dominant on the ball; Seiwald offers balance where Pavlović offers control.
Seiwald presents some similarities with former Borussia Dortmund, Benfica, and Borussia Mönchengladbach midfielder Julian Weigl, as both players have vertical intent without forcing play on top of limited ability to manipulate opposition pressure.
Additionally, both players would thrive in organised systems, ideally alongside a press-resistant ball-carrying midfield partner.
In Weigl’s case, he was at his best alongside İlkay Gündoğan in his early career at BVB, who fits this theoretically ideal partnership profile for Seiwald, too.
Nicolas Seiwald In Possession
Nicolas Seiwald’s Red Bull upbringing is evident in his profile.
For starters, we see this in his preference for verticality over ball dominance.
The majority of Nicolas Seiwald’s actions on the ball could comfortably be classed under the ‘not flashy’ category, though he does try to get forward where possible.
Seiwald is capable of taking a moment on the ball before winding up a killer long ball over the top, but these types of plays are rarer in his game.
Most of his actions see him keep the ball grounded, progressing forward to a reasonable extent, setting up his team’s more creative players to truly split the opposing defence open.
The example above shows Seiwald performing a smart interception thanks to his positioning before opening up his body.
After coming under some pressure and failing to find any great forward passing solutions, Seiwald plays the ball backwards.
His involvement isn’t done there, however, as Seiwald then moves well to find some space to receive again.
This allows him to take the ball on the half-turn and quickly get his head up before executing a nice forward pass into the half-space, finding a teammate who can play the killer through ball, which opens the opposition defence up.
This clip contains a lot of what’s so good about Nicolas Seiwald in the midfield.
He’s a great ball winner, while he’s also extremely quick-thinking, reliable, and sensible on the ball, making him an excellent option in the right midfield setup as described previously.
Nicolas Seiwald’s quick-thinking nature is evident once more in Figure 2.
Here, the midfielder is positioned well to help his teammate, who comes under a lot of pressure from two opposing midfielders.
Seiwald quickly spots a great opportunity to pull off a lofted pass over the two opposing players, finding a teammate in space behind the opposition’s midfield line without much fuss, setting his team up to break into the final third.
The Austrian’s positioning, timing, and technique combine with elite mental attributes displayed through his composure and fast execution to help RB Leipzig keep the ball and beat the pressure.
At times, Nicolas Seiwald likes to drop in between the two centre-backs to help his side beat the opposition’s first line of pressure in the build-up and ball progression phases.
His technical quality and wide passing range make him a solid asset in such a role.
Nicolas Seiwald Out Of Possession
Out of possession is where Nicolas Seiwald truly goes from a good midfielder to a great one.
We saw a glimpse of what the Austrian midfielder offers without the ball in the previous section, with his interception at the beginning of the video clip.
In that case, his positioning and timing were essential to the success of the move.
The data at the beginning of the scout report also showed that Nicolas Seiwald is a highly active yet disciplined and reliable midfield option.
This section goes a bit deeper into the key strengths and weaknesses of Nicolas Seiwald’s defensive game.
I’d predominantly describe Nicolas Seiwald as an active and aggressive midfielder who’s positionally disciplined and excellent at snuffing out danger between the lines.
Again, owing to his Red Bull upbringing, Seiwald is particularly useful in transitional defence.
He’s not one to control ‘zone 14’ and plug the gaps in his side’s low block, which is somewhere a Chema Andrés would have one over on Seiwald.
Instead, his natural defensive instincts appear to be tuned more towards what he needs to be doing and where he needs to be immediately after possession is lost; this often sees Nicolas Seiwald covering a lot of ground to assist his side without the ball and shut down opposition counterattacks.
Figure 4 shows an example of Nicolas Seiwald closing down an opposition dribbler and aggressively shepherding him away from the middle of the park.
However, the opponent manages to play a nice back-heel pass to a teammate in support, which momentarily eases the pressure.
As play moves on into Figure 5, though, Nicolas Seiwald has recovered fast to close down the receiver and times his tackle to perfection, leading to a turnover for RB Leipzig.
This passage of play highlights Nicolas Seiwald’s active and aggressive yet positionally disciplined style of play out of possession.
The next clip above highlights some of what Nicolas Seiwald offers in defensive transition.
Here, as the opponent tries to get the ball out from the back, having just regained possession, Seiwald quickly arrives behind the midfield receiver and again times his tackle to perfection to force the high turnover and tilt the momentum firmly back in his team’s favour.
Nicolas Seiwald’s aggression can get the better of him at times, such as in the next example above.
Here, Seiwald is a tad overzealous and dives into the tackle, which allows the opponent to beat him fairly easily and win the foul.
This is an example of a situation where better timing and composure without the ball would’ve helped Seiwald, illuminating a potential area for some improvement.
Conclusion
To conclude this Nicolas Seiwald scout report, the 24-year-old Austrian is a pure Red Bull midfielder, evident through the data and our video analysis of his style of play.
Currently valued at €18m by Transfermarkt, that price tag would be an amazing bargain for a player of Nicolas Seiwald’s quality for the right team.
It’s important that his limitations in and out of possession are recognised, however.
Nicolas Seiwald would work best in a fairly structured system as a balanced holding midfielder in a double-pivot alongside a slightly more attack-minded, ball-carrying partner.
He’s capable of contributing on both sides of the ball in the right tactical setup, preferably a high-intensity, high-pressing system which emphasises dominance in transition rather than lengthy periods either with or without the ball, where other options would likely trump Seiwald’s contribution.
Teams without a ball-carrying midfield partner, teams focusing a lot on low-block defence, and teams that ask a lot from their holding midfielder on the ball would be best to avoid Seiwald.
He’s an obvious fit for RB Leipzig and stylistically comparable sides.
