Advancing to eighth place in the UEFA national ranking (at the expense of Belgium and Russia) is no accident. Rather a tendency which – looking at the recent years and the current season – will continue.
It was not so good in Austrian football since the mid-1980s, when Austria Vienna was delighted in both the league and Europe. Let us remind you that we are talking about a country with a population of 9 million and a league whose clubs in 2006–2009 in European cups scored a total of fewer points in the UEFA ranking than the teams of the Polish league. Austria was then even for a while outside the top twenty leagues in Europe (22nd place), not far from Poland (23rd). In the following years, Red Bull Salzburg became a local and European power, which attracted the ears of other clubs.
Salzburg equation
The investment of the Austrian producer of energy drinks in a club from (previously it was SV Austria Salzburg) changed a lot in the local football landscape. Since 2005, tens of millions of euros have been pumped into the new club to replace SV in the top division. The club’s new colors, the management, the venue for the matches (the stadium in Salzburg built for Euro 2008 has become it), the new former footballers, the new philosophy of creating and educating the young and talented. Great results came quickly as well. RB has dominated the league after two years. Counting with the 2007 championship, he won a total of 12 titles, including the last eight in a row. To this should be added the same number of Austrian Cups.
How did Salzburg’s hegemony affect the league? Surprisingly positive. First of all – the league authorities began to think how to make the competition for the most important primacy more attractive and try to activate other clubs to try to keep up with Salzburg. After the 2017/18 season, the game was reformed. The Austrian system now resembles the one used recently in the top league, although it makes the excitement in the league until the end for practically everyone.
First of all, the number of teams in the league has been increased to 12. This is also how much they play in the regular season (everyone with everyone + rematch). Then there is a transition to the championship and relegation groups and dividing the points in half. Each team plays against new group rivals at home and away.
This is where the fun begins. The first team in the championship group wins the title and is guaranteed participation in the group stage. It is also the result of the league’s promotion in the UEFA ranking and an important factor in strengthening its position. Salzburg just a few years ago (until the 2017/18 season) had to start the fight for the Champions League from the second or third round of qualifying, which often ended with a landing in the Europa League. There, however, he always played very well (in the 17/18 season he even reached the semi-finals). In recent years, systematically earning club points meant that Salzburg started only from the playoffs of the Champions League and finally was more confidently promoted to its group stage. However, Salzburg’s good performances also translated into opening the gates of Europe to the rest of the Austrian teams. The country’s runner-up can now play el. Champions League (league track). The third team is in the 3rd election round. Europe Leagues. The fourth-placed team plays internal playoffs for the Conference League. There is also the national cup winner, which is assigned to el. Europe Leagues. If, however, it takes a high place in the championship group, even the fifth team in the league will be fighting for the European cups, which in practice is often the case. Overall, five out of six teams in the Austrian championship group compete for European cups every year.
The fight for the championship has also become a bit more even. Perhaps splitting the points slightly artificially reduces Salzburg’s (usually) advantage at the halfway point of the tournament, but other teams, seeing the bunny in front of them, start to run faster after him. In the 19/20 season, the main part of the league was won by LASK Linz, who will scare the big rival. On the way to break the primacy of Salzburg) imposed for training in too large groups during a pandemic.
The change in the tournament system was received positively in Austria. It is known that sometimes smaller clubs that do not play with the best at the end of the season are complaining, but the reform has a better reception than the sharing of points in Poland at the time. Let’s add that currently 2/3 of 54 European leagues have a system of division into groups.
From relegation group to European cups
In Austria, care was also taken to ensure that even in the relegation group there was no boredom. You can also get to the European cups from this group. Her two best teams at the end of the season play play-off to qualify for. Only that the play-off is two-stage, because the winner of this match then faces the already mentioned fourth or fifth team of the championship group, and only the winner of this match may appear in Europe. Thanks to this procedure, even though only one team may be relegated from the league, the competition in the relegation group is also interesting. To make the rules even more varied, taking the last place in the relegation group does not necessarily mean relegation. According to the latest regulations, if a second league champion does not have a license to play in the Bundesliga, then no one else gets a direct promotion. He can fight for him – in the play-offs with the worst Bundesliga team – the best team from places 2-4, which has a license for the Premier League. Is it the way to hermetic games? Not necessarily. Rather, sending a clear signal to clubs to raise expectations towards each other.
This is also indicated by the recent changes in infrastructure regulations. From 2025, clubs, up to the minimum capacity of seats in the Bundesliga, will not be allowed to include mobile stands, eagerly accurate by smaller clubs, e.g. behind the goals. The league, in addition to being stronger and stronger, also wants to look better and inspire activists to think about the future.
Surprising LASK and solid Rapid, everyone scores there
The fact that the strength of Austrian football is not only Salzburg shows also the UEFA club ranking. The Red Bull team is in 18th place, but they are also fighting for high positions. Linz is ranked 50th in the current competition, but it is worth noting that five years ago this team did not play in Europe at all. Two years ago, however, she won the Europa League group (including with Sporting, PSV and Rosenborg) and reached the 1/16 finals in these competitions, only eliminating Manchester United. This year, LASK won the Conference League group. Rapid Vienna also has 95th place in the ranking, which together with the two teams mentioned above is still in the European competition this season. For comparison, the highest-ranked Polish team – Legia is 113th, Lech 207.
In recent years, Austria has consistently had two or three teams playing in European cups in the spring. Scoring points for the country was therefore not limited to Salzburg.
Because when playing in the Austrian league, you can regularly appear in the Champions League or other European cups, the tournament is attractive for talented, perspective players – also from abroad. Red Bull has a nose for finding them, and good money helps when signing contracts, which then returns many times during transfers. In the Austrian league in recent years, you could watch Sadio Mane, Dominik Szoboszlai, Naby Keita, Patson Daka or Everyone played for Red Bull, and the club earned over 110 million euro on their sale to England or Germany. Although Red Bull players are at the top of the transfer list of stars and amounts obtained from transfers, the biggest clubs are also knocking on the doors of other league players. A few years ago, Rapid sold the young Maximilan Wober to Ajax for over eight million euros. And this season, FC Barcelona signed up and loaned another representative from Austria. As for Wober, the defender also passed through Sevilla and was pulled off by Salzburg.
Although the power of Red Bull is built mainly on foreign players, there are no foreigners in the entire league. They usually make up just over 30 percent of the players. For Austria coach Franco Foda, the Austrian Bundesliga also usually supplies three to five players to the team and is becoming an increasingly attractive place to pursue a career. For comparison, there is currently no player in the Polish league who was called up for the November or October matches of the national team.
, who has played in Austria for almost a decade as a player and is interested in the local league, draws our attention to the training. – There’s a lot of coaching quality there. When I did the UEFA A coaching license for players and representatives of the country, Adi Hutter (currently the coach of Borussia M’Gladbach), Dietmar Kuhbauer (until recently the coach of Rapid Wedeń) and Michael Baur (assistant in Admir Wacker) were on the course. Let’s see that coaches from Austria successfully find employment in Germany. This proves something – the former Polish national team coach is signaling us.
The second part of the Austrian league season starts in mid-February.
Source: Sport
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
