Austria faces tough trip to Belgrade

June 5th, 2009 | by: j |

Dietmar Constantini’s Austrian side travel to Belgrade’s Stadion Crvena Zvezda to face surging Serbia in World Cup qualifying on Saturday. Following the 2-1 victory over Romania in April, Austria still has a slight chance of qualifying, albeit through a multitude of unlikely results. Regardless of qualifying the turnaround orchestrated by the Österreichischer Fußball Bund has been nothing short of remarkable as Austria has catapulted from 108th in FIFA World ranking in July 2008 to 70th in the most recent results. Combined with the superb play of the development “unders”, the future bodes well for Austria.

Standing in the way on Saturday is one of the hottest nations in World Cup qualifying, Serbia. Radomir Antić has his White Eagles side on the verge of sealing qualification and a packed house in beautiful Belgrade will ensure the match is played in a smoldering cauldron. After an early stumble against France, Serbia heads into Saturday’s affair knowing that a victory is crucial in securing a trip to South Africa.

Austria will be without their leader Middlesbrough’s Emanuel Pogatetz and will debut Aleksandar Dragović (Austria Wien), Julian Baumgartlinger (1860 München), Jakob Jantscher (Sturm Graz) and Florian Klein (LASK). Experience is at a premium and given the attacking prowess of the hosts in conjunction with a youthful Austrian side, Dietmar Constantini is likely to deploy a more defensive minded approach.

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Comments

By Nikola | June 6th, 2009 at 10:48 am

I’ll be at the game tonight, the whole Crvena Zvezda stadium has been sold out and there’s going to be more than 50.000 supporters tonight, an extremely rare ocassion over here – I really expect a pandemonium in the stands!

It’s interesting that you think Constantini will employ defensive tactics, he has actually stated that his team has nothing to lose and will therefore go for a win. Do you think it’s just a mind-game? I think it would be a suicide to open-up in Belgrade, Serbia plays very good on the counter-attack and has trouble with weaker defense-minded teams like Faroe Islands and such.

Anyway, I hope it’s going to be an exciting game tonight!

By j | June 6th, 2009 at 10:33 pm

Nikola, I cant believe you were at the match as well. I wish I had known before but we’ll have to make sure to get to a match sometime.

Quite the finish to the match as it looked like the Austria’s were going to grab the draw.

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