In the dressing room of Leipzig’s Central Stadium, a project had just failed and a new one was already being discussed. Only minutes had passed since the Austrian national team’s narrowly lost to Turkey in the European Championship round of 16 when coach Ralf Rangnick addressed his team with words about the future. They would see each other again in the autumn and from then on it would be all about the big long-term goal, which in reality was much bigger than the European Championship: to lead Austria to another World Cup in two years’ time – that is the goal of a coach, and that was already the focus in Leipzig.
One could write this off as a relatively simple trick by the eloquent football rhetorician and team motivator Rangnick, who has naturally developed an awareness in his long career that in moments of defeat, thinking about the future can be a salvation. In reality, however, it is about putting the 66-year-old in the right light: Rangnick is the coach – or, in local jargon, team manager – of the Austrian national team, nothing else. Even if some people don’t want to believe that.
It was once again a political summer in Austrian football, at least after the European Championships. Anyone who thought that the German Football Association (DFB) was a complicated union of regional rulers and football managers has not yet met the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB): a conflict between two camps with very different interests has been simmering there for years, which would probably be too silly even for the DFB. It is a kind of war of attrition between regional associations, which leads to such strange stalemate situations as the appointment of Thomas Hollerer and Bernhard Neuhold as managing directors, of whom even the Viennese city pigeons know that they can’t stand each other.
Hollerer and Neuhold are said to continue to work against each other rather than with each other, but now in an association that is committed to reform, thanks in particular to President Klaus Mitterdorfer. Mitterdorfer has been in the position for a year, which he got to in a very Austrian way (nobody really knows exactly how), but in which he is now doing a remarkable job: Mitterdorfer has miraculously managed to get the ÖFB to receive a reform that it urgently needs in a committee full of self-interests. Not everyone is in favor of “football first”, but at least there is a majority that calls for more cooperation and better decision-making processes.
According to SZ information, Rangnick expressly does not want to restructure and redesign the ÖFB
The role of team manager Rangnick is also political. He is considered a supporter of Mitterdorfer and was present at the decisive meeting, but was expressly not involved in the drafting of the reform. Even if this is publicly attributed to him, by both sides. The reform supporters claim that the savior Rangnick would give the necessary impetus, as he once did when building the Red Bull football empire, which worked well. And the reform opponents claim that Rangnick wants to restructure the ÖFB according to his ideas, which they obviously do not want to allow as profiteers of traditionally opaque structures.
But according to SZ information, Rangnick expressly does not want to rebuild and redesign the ÖFB, but simply wants to successfully train a national team. If so, then the team manager is said to have a great interest in modernizing the Ernst Happel Stadium, and many Austrians, outside of the lobby of the Viennese city pigeons that nest in large numbers in the old Prater Stadium, also expressly support him in this. Finding money in the finance chambers of the city of Vienna and federal politics will probably be the challenge, but improvised solutions are needed in Austrian football at the moment anyway.
After the European Championship and the association politics in the summer, Rangnick now has to deal with the Nations League. On Friday evening (8.45 p.m.) Austria will play against Slovenia and on Monday against Norway. Since the entire core team in central defence, including David Alaba, Gernot Trauner, Kevin Danso and Philipp Lienhart, is out, the performance of football coach Rangnick and his team on the field is now eagerly awaited in Austria. This is what he likes to be judged on the most.