DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Benjamin Sesko's long-awaited move from Leipzig to Manchester United is done. Now the real work begins.
Sesko and his fellow Premier League arrival from the Bundesliga, Liverpool's Hugo Ekitiké, will need to buck a recent trend of highly rated forwards from the German league struggling after they leave.
Another with something to prove is Mathys Tel, whose move to Tottenham from Bayern Munich was made permanent despite scoring just two goals in 13 Premier League games on loan last season.
Of course, Erling Haaland smashed records as soon as he arrived in the Premier League with Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund in 2022.
For every star like Haaland, plenty of players like Jadon Sancho, Timo Werner or Randal Kolo Muani lost their way after leaving Germany in big-money deals.
One reason might be that the Bundesliga is a happy hunting ground for would-be goalscorers.
It led the top five European leagues in terms of goals scored per game last season with 3.13 — the others were all below three — and is the only one to average more than three goals per game in each of the last seven years.
Some of that is down to Bayern racking up the score against smaller teams, but Germany is also the home of a tactical shift in world soccer over the past 15 years.
High defensive lines and so-called “gegenpressing” high up the field reward fast, physical forwards who can hustle for the ball and take advantage of a sudden breakaway. Underdog teams are often minded to take risks rather than “park the bus” and defend deep.
Sesko will have seen how hard it can be to regain momentum after failing with a new club.
When Werner came back to Leipzig in 2023 after a failed stint at Chelsea, he was competing for playing time with Sesko — and eventually lost out. Werner's attempt at another reboot on loan at Tottenham fizzled, without a single Premier League goal last season.
Some players never quite recover. The high point of Luka Jovic's career was joining Real Madrid from Eintracht Frankfurt in 2019 for a reported 60 million euros ($67.5 million at the time).
Once considered a potential successor to Cristiano Ronaldo, six years later the 27-year-old Jovic has just arrived at Greece's AEK Athens after stints back at Frankfurt and with Italy's AC Milan and Fiorentina.
Omar Marmoush's move from Frankfurt to City in January hasn't been a roaring success, but isn't an obvious failure either. This season could be crucial to the Egyptian forward's future after seven goals in 16 Premier League games last season.
Kai Havertz was a Champions League winner with Chelsea but has arguably yet to reach his full potential there, or with current team Arsenal. A hamstring injury earlier this year didn't help.
It's unclear how much of a long-term future ex-Leipzig player Christopher Nkunku has in Chelsea's large squad. He scored a total of 15 goals last season but only three in the Premier League.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/soccer
Liverpool's Hugo Ekitike, right, and Marinos' Jeison Quinones battle for control of the ball during a friendly soccer match between Yokohama F. Marinos and Liverpool F.C. at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama, Japan, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Manchester United's Benjamin Sesko applauds the fans as he is introduced to the crowd before the pre-season friendly match at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter Thursday to the U.S. Postal Service, voicing concern that mail processing changes could affect postmark dates for mail-in ballots during an election year that will determine control of Congress.
Updated agency policy says postmarks might not indicate the first day the Postal Service received the mail but rather the day it was handled in one of its processing centers. Those centers are increasingly likely to be further away from certain communities because of recent USPS consolidations, which could further delay postmarks, the 16 senators wrote.
“Postmark delays are especially problematic in states that vote entirely or largely by mail,” they wrote to Postmaster General David Steiner, noting that many states use postmark dates to determine whether a mail ballot can be counted. “These changes will only increase the likelihood of voter disenfranchisement.”
The consequences could be particularly acute in rural areas where mail has to travel farther to reach regional processing centers, they added.
“In theory, a rural voter could submit their ballot in time according to their state law, but due to the changes you are implementing, their legally-cast ballot would not be counted as it sits in a local post office,” they wrote. “As we enter a year with many local and federal elections, the risk of disrupting this vital democratic process demands your attention and action.”
The Postal Service has received the letter and will respond directly to those who sent it, spokesperson Martha Johnson said.
The agency addresses the issue on its website.
“While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed,” its website says. “This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location.”
Johnson said the language in the final rule “does not change any existing postal operations or postmarking practices.” She added that the agency looked forward to “clarifying the senators' misunderstanding.”
“Our public filing was made to enhance public understanding of exactly what a postmark represents, its relationship to the date of mailing and when a postmark is applied in the process,” she said.
People dropping off mail at a post office can request that a postmark be applied manually, ensuring the postmark date matches the mailing date, the Postal Service's website says. Manual postmarks are free of charge.
The agency said the “lack of alignment” between the mailing date and postmark date will become more common as it implements its initiative to overhaul processing and transportation networks with an emphasis on regional hubs. The aim of the initiative is to cut costs for the agency, which has grappled with losses in the billions of dollars in recent years.
Under the plan, the Postal Service got rid of twice-daily mail dispatches from local post offices to regional processing centers. That means mail received after the only transfer truck leaves sits overnight until the next daily transfer, the senators wrote.
Election officials in states that rely heavily on voting by mail expressed concern with the change.
“Not being able to have faith that the Postal Service will mark ballots on the day they are submitted and mail them in a timely manner undermines vote-by-mail voting, in turn undermining California and other elections,” California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement.
She said her office will “amplify messaging to voters” who use mailed ballots that they must return their ballots early if they plan to use the post office.
Election officials in Washington state, where voting is done almost entirely by mail, are recommending that those who return their ballot within a week of Election Day do so at a drop box or voting center.
“Given the operational and logistical priorities recently set by the USPS, there is no guarantee that ballots returned via mail will be postmarked by the USPS the same day they are mailed,” the secretary of state's office said in a statement.
The senators urged Steiner to restore “timely postmarks” and fully stand up an election mail task force. The lawmakers who signed the letter represented California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland. All are Democrats but one, an independent who typically aligns with the Democratic Party.
FILE - Employees sort vote-by-mail ballots from municipal elections on Election Day at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office, Nov. 4, 2025, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
