a poor turn as Serbia devastates Austria

There are times when it is best to be phrase things very simply and without “sugar-coating.” Simply stated for Austrian Football it has been a horrible week which saw the club set-back first with a nightmare inducing draw against the Faroe Islands only to be followed up with today’s 3-1 destruction by Serbia in Vienna. Karel Brückner must immediately deal with the obvious flaws in performance but as I alluded to in the match preview, confidence is extremely shaken and might be the greatest problem.

Radomir Antić’s White Eagles came out with a predatorial instinct and ran Austria off their home grounds with CSKA Moscow’s Miloš Krasić jumping on the score-sheet fourteen minutes into the match. Only four minutes later Milan Jovanović doubled the margin and at the twenty-four minute mark Ivan Obradović FK Partizan made it 3-0. To the jeers and whistles of the home crowd the match was effectively over and played out as such. With ten minutes remaining Marc Janko scored a consolation goal to bring the match to its final 3-1 result.

Karel Brückner must re-group and put together a plan to get the squad back on-track as well as deal with obviously bruised confidence. Austria’s next encounter is a friendly against Turkey next month before returning to qualifiers this spring against Romania.

Austria
Alexander Manninger,György Garics,Sebastian Prödl,Martin Stranzl (Ronald Gercaliu 17′),Emanuel Pogatetz,Paul Scharner,Rene Aufhauser (Jürgen Säumel 60′),Andreas Ivanschitz,Christian Fuchs,Marc Janko,Erwin Hoffer (Marko Arnautovic 46′)

Serbia
Vladimir Stojković,Branislav Ivanović,Nemanja Vidić,Aleksandar Luković,Ivan Obradović,Nenad Milijas (Zdravko Kuzmanović 62′),Dejan Stanković (Boško Janković 76′),Miloš Krasić,Milan Jovanović,Nikola Žigić,Marko Pantelić (Zoran Tošić 63′)