Baum's Journey from Tanzania to Top German Football

She was four years old when her life changed for the first time. Tanzania in the rear-view mirror, Germany up ahead, a football already glued to her feet.

Née in East Africa to a German father and Tanzanian mother, Baum had fallen for the game before she could properly spell it. She chased the ball around with her older brother Dennis, the first team-mate she ever had and, cruelly, the first she ever lost. He died in a car accident at 17. She carries him now in the only way she can: his initials on her boots, tape on her wrist with his name and a quote that grounds her before every kick.

“That way, he's always with me,” she told Die Welt. “I wish he was here and could see everything I do.”

From village pitches to HSV – and a fast track to the top

Once the family settled in northern Germany, Baum’s route into organised football was as unglamorous as it was relentless. She started at local side MTV Ahrensbok, then moved to TSV Pansdorf, where she was the only girl. That never bothered her. If anything, it sharpened her edges.

Her talent quickly outgrew village pitches. Hamburg spotted it and brought her into their youth academy as a teenager, at which point the rise stopped being gentle and became a surge. In August 2022, still only 15, she signed her first-team contract with HSV, tying herself to the club until 2025.

By the time that deal ran out, she had already left a mark that will be talked about in Hamburg for years. Baum helped drag HSV back towards the summit of the women’s game: promotion to the second tier in her first season, then a run to the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal and, crucially, a return to the Frauen-Bundesliga for the first time since 2012. She was a teenager carrying a historic club back into the light.

Her next step was bold. When her contract expired, she walked away on a free to join RB Leipzig, a young club still learning to walk in the top flight. No transfer fee, no safety net, just a 19-year-old backing her own ceiling.

Germany’s age groups can’t keep up with her

While she was climbing the club ladder, the national-team setup in Germany was trying to keep pace. They never really did.

She 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. Recently, she has been a regular with the U23s despite still being just 19. Every time there is a question about whether she’s ready for the next level, she tends to answer it within a few weeks.

Last summer, the big guns started circling. Bayern Munich, the club she loved as a child, were interested, according to kicker. Yet she chose Leipzig. She talked about needing “a fresh start” after four years in Hamburg and pointed to RB’s ambition. It was also a smart football decision.

Leipzig had only just come up to the Bundesliga in 2023. This was not a superclub with a bench full of internationals. It was a side still feeling its way into the division, a team where a fearless teenager could actually play. She did more than that. Only three players in the squad logged more league minutes than Baum last season.

A breakout season that changed the market

Given that platform, she tore into the league. Six goals and two assists from 23 starts, joint-top scorer for Leipzig in the Bundesliga, in a side that finished 10th out of 14. Those numbers don’t scream superstar yet, but the way she produced them certainly did.

Defenders learned quickly what the scouting reports already said: she is relentlessly direct. She wants to turn, run and hurt you. No half-speed. No safe passes sideways. Her pace amplifies that instinct, her close control lets her slalom past markers, and the fact she can use both feet makes her almost impossible to read.

She can drive inside and shoot or dart wide and whip in a cross. For a 19-year-old, her decision-making is strikingly mature. There is still polish to add, of course, but she still finished joint-seventh in the Bundesliga for chances created last season. Doing that in a team that finished 10th tells its own story.

Her own goal threat is not limited to tap-ins. She strikes from distance, especially with a vicious left foot, and she reads space well enough to arrive in scoring positions late. Out of possession, she works. She presses with energy, sets the tone high up the pitch, and rarely coasts through phases without purpose.

Marwin Bolz, her coach at Hamburg, once summed her up neatly in the Hamburger Morgenpost: a player “determined to improve… not just in terms of her soccer skills, but also in her physical conditioning and mental toughness.” Those who know her insist that attitude is not a slogan. It is the spine of her game.

Arsenal at the front of a crowded queue

After one season in the top flight, the market has reacted. Bayern are back at the table. Barcelona, reigning European champions and a team Baum has openly said she loves to watch, are interested. Lyon, beaten by Barca in the Champions League final last month, are in the conversation. Manchester United and London City are also watching, knowing they could offer her heavy minutes from day one.

Bild, though, report that Arsenal are currently leading the race.

The Gunners have been busy clearing space. Several players have left in recent weeks, with England international Beth Mead the standout departure as she heads to Manchester City. Head coach Renee Slegers needs new ammunition out wide. In Baum, she sees the right profile: a winger who runs at full-backs rather than around them, who injects chaos into settled defences.

On paper, it fits. Slegers rotates her wide players aggressively, game by game and within matches, often swapping wingers around the hour mark. That kind of managed exposure to the Women’s Super League could suit a 19-year-old with only one Bundesliga season behind her. She would not be thrown in to carry the attack from day one, but she would not be buried on the bench either.

There is another layer. Arsenal’s recent record with young signings has been mixed. Kathrine Kuhl, Rosa Kafaji and Gio Queiroz all struggled to carve out meaningful first-team roles. Smilla Holmberg’s progress this season hints that things may be shifting under Slegers, who only took the job permanently in January last year. Baum would be a test of whether that change is real.

A rough diamond with elite upside

For all the excitement, she is not the finished product. Not yet.

Her pressing, while enthusiastic, still needs refining. Knowing when to jump, when to hold, how to steer opponents into traps rather than simply chasing the ball – those are details that come with time and high-level coaching.

There are moments when she is too direct, too eager to break rather than help her team breathe on the ball. In Leipzig, a side still establishing itself and often playing in transition, that urge is understandable. In a dominant team, she will need to pick her moments better. The good news is that her passing range is solid enough that this is a tweak, not a rebuild.

She can also drift in and out of games. That is almost a job description for young wide forwards. The challenge now is to stretch those bursts of influence across 90 minutes, to learn how to affect matches when the ball is not constantly at her feet. Physically, she is still adjusting to the demands of elite senior football. One top-flight season is a foundation, not a peak.

Watch her long enough and certain comparisons start to surface. Her tight control, tricks in one-v-one situations and refusal to play safe balls echo Kerolin, the Manchester City star. Like the Brazilian, Baum can operate across the front line and will always, always look to drive at defenders, whether to create for others or herself. Slightly taller than Kerolin, she has the frame to become even more imposing as she fills out.

Then there are the moments when she cuts inside and whips from range. There, you see shades of Salma Paralluelo, the Barcelona forward who lit up the Champions League final with a stunning third goal before adding a fourth. That same inside-left lane, that same conviction in the strike. Baum, though, has more of the traditional winger’s toolkit than Paralluelo, who has often been used as a centre-forward.

The next decision

For all the noise around her, Baum sounds unhurried. Speaking to Die Welt earlier this year, she brushed off talk of targeting the next senior World Cup. Her eyes are on the home European Championship in 2029 instead. That is not a lack of ambition. It is a sign of someone thinking in cycles, not headlines.

“My goal isn't to be a star, I mainly want to be happy with what I do,” she said.

The choice in front of her now is as big as any she has faced. Arsenal, with a clear role and a demanding environment. Barca, Bayern or Lyon, with their history of nurturing young talent and their expectation of trophies every season. Manchester United or London City, with the promise of regular starts and the space to make mistakes.

Somewhere in that list is the club that will shape the next five years of her life. A girl who once fought to be the only one in a boys’ team now has Europe’s elite fighting for her signature.

The ball, as ever, is at her feet.