“All over the world, 17-year-olds are given a chance. Just not with us,” says Manfred Zsak.
Four games in Europe’s club competitions, four (some embarrassingly high) defeats. And it’s always high season in the ÖFB-Intrigantenstadl. In contrast to the sadness, in addition to the luck of the World Cup draw, at least Steirer-Buam gives reason for a bit of hope. The one who went from being the head of the Styrian association to becoming the ÖFB interim president Wolfgang Bartosch66, is not meant due to age alone.
The Styrian ex-team defender Sebastian Prödl (73 international matches) is now in charge of the ÖFB youth teams from U-15 to U21 and has the task of ensuring that ball talents with a migration background do not choose the country of their parents in the future, but rather ÖFB selections.
Prödl, 37, was the very best at an international UEFA management course in Switzerland, to the delight of the examination committee. Above all, he was the team boss’s preferred candidate Ralf Rangnick.
Prödl’s former European Championship teammate Jürgen Säumel (20 international matches) played so attractively as interim coach of Sturm Graz (even in the 2-3 loss in Lille) that he is recommended as a permanent solution.
The Styrian bundle of energy Manfred Fischer (29, zero international matches) as Austria captain is the driving force behind the Violets becoming the closest pursuers of defending champions Sturm.
And the former Graz midfield engine Daniel Beichler (five international matches) coached the undefeated Salzburg team to third place among 36 clubs in the Europa Youth League – ahead of Barcelona and Real.
Word of Salzburg’s years of youth successes spread among foreign talent scouts more than in the local sporting public. With Angel Gomez Even the chief scout from Lionel Messi’s Club Inter Miami in Salzburg. Señor Gomez showed himself to be above any young bull, especially a goalscorer Phillip Verhouniginformed in detail. The 18-year-old, who scored nine times in six Youth League games for Salzburg, is not Styrian, but Carinthian.
Rapid and Sturm Graz also qualified for the Youth League play-off phase. The Greens and the Graz Rough Diamonds are also doing better than the professionals in an international comparison. Which is no guarantee of a Bundesliga job, as barely two percent of academy graduates make the jump to the feeding trough.
Ex-national team captain Manfred Zsak is considered serenity personified. But in view of the high drop-out rate, the U-16 selection coach, who was happy about a 5-1 win against Germany this year and who will be celebrating his 60th birthday shortly before Christmas, is blushing with anger. “All over the world, 17-year-olds are given a chance. Just not with us.”
Of the 59 players who wore Austrian club uniforms in the European Cup this week and were so humiliated internationally, 42 are legionnaires. Which is why malicious people even think that Austrians would have been enough to play the role of whipping boy.