Look out Bayern Munich! 'Pep' Hasenhuttl's RB Leipzig Are Coming for You

It is just how it was supposed to be; Bayern Munich leading the way in the Bundesliga with a talented rival coached by a young tactician, whose future looks bright, breathing down their necks.

However, it is not Borussia Dortmund and Thomas Tuchel who will arrive at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday on the coattails of Bayern, it is RB Leizpig, the newly promoted side causing quite a "Sturm und Drang" in the German top flight.

Goal difference is all that separates the pair ahead of their top-of-the-bill encounter in Bavaria, just seven years since five divisions of German football was the buffer between the two clubs.

It is a similar story to the rise of TSG Hoffenheim, who—in their maiden Bundesliga season—arrived in Munich as league leaders just before Christmas 2008. A 2-1 defeat did not prevent them from claiming the honorific title of Herbstmeister (autumn champions), but it was Bayern who picked up the big award at the end of the season.

Many expect RB Leipzig to suffer a similar fate—to tail off after the brightest of starts, when opponents finally work out how to play them.

"There are parallels with the situation in the table, but less so with the team," Ralf Rangnick said, per Sport1. He should know; he was Hoffenheim coach at the time and is now Leipzig's sporting director. "Bayern are stronger. Back then, they were vulnerable. Hoffenheim existed through the qualities of individual players, not so much from team spirit. That's the difference with Leipzig."

It is also the reason why Bayern fans should get used to seeing this club challenge their dominance. Until 2009 RB Leipzig were known as SV Markranstadt when Dietrich Mateschitz, the Red Bull energy drink magnate with a $12.5 billion fortune, arrived.

The Austrian billionaire gave wings to the project of creating a juggernaut that will surely become the biggest threat to Bayern's hegemony of the Bundesliga and give German football another heavyweight on the European stage.

Despite their Austrian owner's massive wealth, Leipzig have not gone about constructing the club virtually from scratch like a red bull in a China shop. There is a rigid philosophy in place, one that has helped foster team spirit by only bringing in youngsters who—subsequently—owe their rise in the game to the club, fostering a degree of loyalty in a sport where it is rarely seen.

"It's so great in Leipzig," said Emil Forsberg, per Bild, an unknown outside his native Sweden when he arrived in 2015, but who then played at Euro 2016 with Zlatan Ibrahimovic. "I love the team, the people here, the club. We're like a family."

Denmark international forward Yussuf Poulsen, 22, former Hoffenheim and Werder Bremen striker Davie Selke, 21, and Forsberg, 25, were the spearhead that provided the goals behind last season's promotion push.

This season's leading scorer with nine goals, Timo Werner—picked up from VfB Stuttgart last summer—is just 20. Of the players who have featured in the Bundesliga for Leipzig this season, only defender Marvin Compper and captain Dominik Kaiser were born in the 1980s.

They have also used the Red Bull network to good effect. No less than three players arrived from Red Bull Salzburg last summer. Brazilian defender Bernardo, former Bayern youth-academy prospect Benno Schmitz and Guinean midfielder Naby Keita have featured in the Bundesliga this season. Their transition to the German top tier was eased by their experience in Austria, where they all won the league title last term.

"We are different from other clubs. Look at the age range, it doesn't get older than 23 or 24," Rangnick said, per Sport1. The Leipzig sporting director turned down Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy in 2014, per Bundesliga.com, because he was 27 at the time.

Rangnick added: "We also pay attention to our salaries and the mentality of the players. We know the closer we get to the top, the more difficult it gets."

The young guns they have stuck to have worked brilliantly so far, though the leap to the UEFA Champions League that may come next season may force them to dig deeper into Mateschitz's pockets and add greater bulk and experience to their ranks, perhaps sooner than they might have wished.

"Actually, I would have asked him whether he had drunk too much Red Bull," Rangnick said, per Sport1, when asked how he would have replied if told the club would now be in the German top flight when he took a risk with his own career to join Leipzig in 2012. "I couldn't really imagine playing in the Bundesliga in 2012. No-one would have thought things would have gone so quickly."

As always with those upsetting the established order of things, RB Leipzig have attracted criticism. Fans of Traditionsvereinen—the traditional clubs in Germany—have reacted angrily to the rise of this upstart from the former DDR.

Dortmund supporters boycotted their team's trip to Leipzig for the newly promoted team's first home game in the Bundesliga, while FC Cologne fans blocked the team bus.

En route to Bayer Leverkusen's stadium for their recent encounter there, the Leipzig coach was pelted with coloured paint. For a tight-knit group, there is surely nothing better than such hostility to create a siege mentality. It is all the more easy to exploit the idea of "no-one likes us, we don't care" when no one does actually like you.

For those Bayern fans thumbing their nose at the Jurgen-come-latelys, they should remember that if Joshua Kimmich has been such an instant success in Munich, it was in the colours of Leipzig (on loan from Stuttgart) that he gained valuable experience of professional football.

Kimmich's arrival—albeit by virtue of Stuttgart's preference to sell to Bayern and the player's wishes when his two-year loan deal in Leipzig expired—is perhaps a sign of things to come, and how the powers-that-be in Munich might keep their rivals at bay.

But more than cherry-picking Leipzig's best players—a tactic Bayern have successfully used for years to cut off many a rival's challenge at the knees—they may just take their coach.

"Ralph Hasenhuttl is doing a good job with RB Leipzig," Bayern president Uli Hoeness said, per Bild, recently. "When we want a German-speaking coach, he is certainly one of the candidates we will have to consider."

There was higher praise still from Arjen Robben. "You see his changes immediately. It's like Pep [Guardiola]. His influence on Manchester City's play you can also see straightaway," the Netherlands international said of Hasenhuttl, per Bild.

"The Buffalo is doing a good job," added Lahm, per Bild, referring to the Leipzig boss with the nickname he used when he played in Bayern's reserve team alongside Hasenhuttl just after the turn of the millennium.

Hasenhuttl has certainly made strides up the coaching ladder. He got SpVgg Unterhaching promoted to the 3 Liga, took VfR Aalen into Bundesliga 2 and then guided FC Ingolstadt into the top flight. It now seems the Austrian will establish Leipzig as a Bundesliga superpower.

Not that Manuel Neuer sees it happening soon. "I don't think RB can in the next three or four years do what Dortmund have done in recent years," the Bayern goalkeeper told Kicker in an interview ahead of the game.

The 90 minutes on Wednesday should give an indication of how far Leipzig have come—and still have to go—to be a consistent thorn in the champions' side. It will also tell Bayern fans just how much they have to worry about winning a fifth successive league title.