Ralf Rangnick appears to have taken Austria up a level during his two years in charge. His in-form side, who have pulled off a number of giantkillings in recent months, look ready to orchestrate more upsets this summer.
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The manager
After working in club football for the best part of four decades, his six months managing Manchester United in the 2021-22 season appear to have put Ralf Rangnick off.
Over the past two years, he has shifted into the international game for the first time, preparing Austria for a close-to-home European Championship just over their northern border and, whisper it, appears to have positioned them in something approaching the ‘dark horses’ category… if they can get out of a really tough group also containing France, the Netherlands and Poland.
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Rangnick’s side have beaten Croatia (3-0), Italy (2-0) and Germany (2-0), and in March, they walloped Turkey 6-1 in a friendly, despite being without David Alaba, Marko Arnautovic and Marcel Sabitzer that day.
Under predecessor Franco Foda, Austria had failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup, finishing fourth in their group behind Denmark, Scotland and Israel, then losing 2-1 away against Qatar-bound Wales in the semi-finals of the play-offs. Not only that, they were playing defensive, conservative, counter-attacking football and the fans were pretty disengaged.
Since his appointment (arguably the most high-profile managerial hire in the nation’s footballing history), they have been transformed into a high-pressing, high-energy, attack-minded side, with a group of players who are well-suited to Rangnick’s complex demands.
Rangnick moved to live in Austria, a big box ticked in PR terms, has built strong relationships with the players and, via exciting performances and results, the fans are back on board. Only 18,000 watched them beat Italy 2-0 in Vienna in November 2022 (under half the Ernst-Happel stadium’s capacity) but for a game there against Belgium 11 months later, around 47,000 tickets were sold in less than three hours.
GO DEEPERRangnick remaining with Austria: 'This is not a rejection of Bayern'The household name in waiting
The majority of the squad will be familiar to regular viewers of Germany’s Bundesliga, with Sabitzer (Borussia Dortmund), Konrad Laimer (Bayern Munich), Christoph Baumgartner (RB Leipzig) and Michael Gregoritsch (Freiburg) among Austria’s more prominent players. And Arnautovic is still knocking around at age 35, having just helped Inter Milan win the Serie A title.
Wolfsburg winger Patrick Wimmer has been in the Bundesliga for three years now but in terms of Austria players who could make a big impact at Euro 2024, he is probably the least well-known outside of his homeland or Germany.
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With his rabona assists, his pace and his long blond locks (sometimes tamed with an Alice band, sometimes up in a top knot), Wimmer rarely fails to garner attention.
He can play on either wing, or behind a striker, and brings creativity and unpredictability. Wolfsburg’s then sporting director Marcel Schafer once described Wimmer as someone who “plays without inhibition”. More intriguingly, ex-Arminia Bielefeld team-mate Stefan Ortega said of the now 23-year-old: “There’s something crazy and carefree about him.”
Wimmer has 10 caps for Austria since his June 2022 debut (Christian Hofer/Getty Images)
Strengths
Early goals. Austria scored the fastest goal in 152 years of international football when Baumgartner found the net after six seconds against Slovakia in March. Then, a few days later, they opened the scoring against Turkey after 103 seconds, through Xaver Schlager.
Their all-action style is impressively well-honed for an international side who only get together every few months and they’re also in great form, having won six games in a row, the most recent a 2-1 defeat of Serbia in a pre-Euros warm-up friendly earlier this week. Rangnick called the second half of that 6-1 shellacking of Turkey “close to perfection”.
Goals haven’t been a problem under the German — they have 34 in their 16 internationals since last being held goalless in September 2022 (a 2-0 away defeat against France in the Nations League).
Tall (6ft 4in/193cm) striker Gregoritsch tends to lead the line, occasionally alongside ageing maverick Arnautovic (who scored five goals in 27 Serie A appearances for Inter last season, on loan from fellow Italians Bologna), supported by creators Sabitzer, Baumgartner, Laimer and Wimmer.
Weaknesses
Injuries, specifically of the serious knee variety. Alaba ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) playing for Real Madrid in December and will be a huge miss. He will be at the tournament with his team-mates, though, in a role of ‘non-playing captain’, David Beckham/2010 World Cup-style.
Their first-choice goalkeeper Alexander Schlager, of Red Bull Salzburg, is also going to miss these Euros with an ACL injury, while namesake Xaver tore one of his a month ago and will be a sizeable absentee as a midfield pivot. Wolves striker Sasa Kalajdzic is out with the same injury, too.
Alaba will travel to Euro 2024 with Austria – but not as a member of their playing squad (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
Expectations back home
Excitement levels are high, but expectations are probably quite realistic.
Austria have next to no international-tournament pedigree. Since finishing fourth at the 1934 World Cup and third in 1954, they have never reached a quarter-final, their most recent World Cup appearance was in 1998 (they didn’t win a game in a group with Italy, Chile and Cameroon) and they have only ever played in three European Championships (two group-stage exits and an unlucky 2-1 defeat after extra time by eventual champions Italy three years ago).
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Could this time be different? It certainly feels different. But Austria have been here before pretty recently.
They tore through Euro 2016 qualifying with the second-best record of any nation (nine wins, one draw; only England did better), got to a best-ever 10th in the FIFA rankings and were expected to do something of real note at the finals in France, having been handed a great draw. Then, when it mattered, they shrivelled, losing to Hungary and Iceland either side of a draw with title-bound Portugal, and finishing bottom of their group.
Their draw is seriously tough, too: France in the first game, then Poland, then the Dutch. However, given the team’s impressive results against some of Europe’s big boys under Rangnick already, Austrians are hopeful of an upset or two, and they will cross the border in big numbers: besides hosts Germany, only people in England, France and Spain have applied for more tickets for the tournament than Austrians.
Austria’s Euro 2024 squad
Goalkeepers: Patrick Pentz (Brondby), Heinz Lindner (Union Saint-Gilloise), Niklas Hedl (Rapid Wien).
Defenders: Stefan Posch (Bologna), Max Wober (Borussia Monchengladbach), Philipp Lienhart (Freiburg), Kevin Danso (Lens), Phillipp Mwene (Mainz), Flavius Daniliuc (Red Bull Salzburg), Gernot Trauner (Feyenoord), Leopold Querfeld (Rapid Wien).
Midfielders: Marcel Sabitzer (Borussia Dortmund), Florian Grillitsch (Hoffenheim), Christoph Baumgartner (RB Leipzig), Konrad Laimer (Bayern Munich), Florian Kainz (Cologne), Nicolas Seiwald (RB Leipzig), Romano Schmid (Werder Bremen), Alexander Prass (Sturm Graz), Matthias Seidl (Rapid Vienna).
Forwards: Marko Arnautovic (Inter), Michael Gregoritsch (Freiburg), Andreas Weimann (West Brom), Patrick Wimmer (Wolfsburg), Marco Grull (Rapid Wien), Maximilian Entrup (TSV Hartberg).
(Top image via Getty Images; design by Eamonn Dalton)
Tim Spiers is a football journalist for The Athletic, based in London. He joined in 2019 having previously worked at the Express & Star in Wolverhampton. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimSpiers
