Jimmy Hoffer leads Austria to victory

The Didi Constantini reign at the helm started in style as he lead Austria to a emphatic 2-1 victory over Romania in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee. With twenty year-old’s Yasin Pehlivan of Rapid Wien and Daniel Beichler of SK Sturm Graz making their debut in die rot-weiß-rote starting eleven, Austria showed the confidence that has seen their developmental program figure in some of Europe’s top competitions.

After a slow start Romania took the lead six minutes before the half hour mark when Austrian ‘keeper Michael Gspurning clearance wasn’t sufficient and Cristian Tănase of Argeş Piteşti cleverly chipped the ball into the back of the net from thirty metres.

Romania was asleep at the wheel as within the minute Rapid Wien’s “Jimmy” Hoffer took advantage of uncharacteristic sloppy defending to sent the ball in to bring th even.

Just before the half a long-ball came to the Rapid Wien man and after racing in on Romanian ‘keeper Bogdan Lobonţ he showed his extraordinary promise and made it 2-1.

While Romania had a number of respectable chances to level the match in the second half, Austria held strong for the important 2-1 victory. Austria returns to play against Serbia in the first week of June.