For many, RB Leipzig is a controversial place to play football.

In the 17 years since its founding, the club has built a significant sporting legacy, competing in the Champions League for eight seasons, including reaching the semi-finals in 2020, yet other Bundesliga clubs still don't recognize their identity.

During Sunday's match at Red Bull Arena, visiting fans from Hamburg displayed banners reading "RB: Enemy of Football."

But for former Chelsea striker Nkunku, returning to Leipzig now feels like the right choice. Over the past three years, he has struggled to make his name outside Germany's top division.

"I can still see some familiar faces. This is exactly what I wanted and what I like.

"Right now I need to enjoy football again," Nkunku said in an interview weeks after rejoining the club. This is where he truly made his name before being loaned to Italian giants AC Milan for one season. "I just want to focus on football and the game, and I want to enjoy myself on the pitch and do what I want to do.

"We had no doubts whatsoever – we pushed this deal through."

He easily scored against Hamburg, helping the team secure a 5-0 victory. But the Nkunku who returned to Leipzig is vastly different from the one who left for London in 2023. At that time, he was the Bundesliga Player of the Year, the German Professional Football Association's Player of the Year, and part of a group of high-profile, long-term signings in the second year of BlueCo's ownership plan, when Chelsea aimed to build a world-class team.

His six-year contract was part of the owner's long-term strategy to secure young talent. He signed at the same time as Palmer, Caicedo, and others, who all went on to prove themselves as top Premier League players. Meanwhile, Chelsea let veteran stars like Kovacic, Azpilicueta, and Kanté leave, largely moving away from established signings.

When he returned to Germany, he had scored only six Premier League goals in two seasons at Chelsea and seven Serie A goals in one season at AC Milan. Speaking about his experience at San Siro last season, Nkunku's tone was somewhat wry – he was surprised he didn't perform better, but you could sense he was also relieved to leave Italy's defensive-focused environment.

"I felt the team's objective was not to concede," he said, "so perhaps if a team scores first, it becomes difficult to score another goal – the team that scores first won't think about scoring a second. So it's very, very difficult, because you're always thinking about continuing to score, continuing to score, but in reality you need to defend and protect the goal."

When discussing the Premier League, his tone was more guarded. Asked whether he had enough opportunities to prove himself at Chelsea, Nkunku said: "I don't want to complain, and I'm not complaining. I could do better myself.

"Chelsea is more like, 'You have to stay in your position'. If you play as a winger, you have to stay near the touchline and just do one-on-one. I can do that too, but it's not possible to play that way the entire match, because I need to move around and roam."

Nkunku made these comments a day after Leipzig's 4-1 away loss to Como in Italy in the first round of the Champions League. Before the match, he explained to media why his time at Chelsea was limited: "Some things happened with the manager and different understanding of football. After that, he also didn't like my role."

The French player served under Mauricio Pochettino and Maresca at Stamford Bridge. As the conversation deepened, it became clear that the manager who made him feel "restricted" was Maresca, who later took over from Guardiola, who departed to manage Manchester City.

Maresca is known for his very clear demands about player roles. Recently, he demonstrated this again when commenting on Manchester City's new signing Ndiaye: "Most of the time, his runs aren't in the right direction, and his positioning isn't correct, but he needs to learn, and I'm confident he will."

Timing was also a factor.

The 28-year-old said that an injury in his first season in London meant the team had stabilized in his absence, and he couldn't change the head coach's opinion of him.

"He had a system, and maybe I could only play one position. But he preferred to use other players, or position me elsewhere. So I just had to respect that. I said, 'Maybe I could play another position', but he's the boss, so it's up to him."

The man who brought Nkunku back to Leipzig is the club's sporting director, Marcel Schäfer. He quickly praised many personal qualities of the French international, who has 18 caps for his country, but he also knows that re-signing a player who once shone so brightly here carries risk.

"If you bring back a player with such a brilliant past, there are many examples in Germany where they return but fail," Schäfer said. "Because expectations from outside are usually very high: he was Bundesliga Player of the Year, he destroyed every defender, so the Bundesliga expectation is, 'Okay, we've brought this player back'.

"But I won't compare him to his years here. I'll just look at him and say, 'Okay, this is what we're missing right now'. I don't expect him to be Player of the Year again – of course I hope he does – but that's not my expectation."

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