Austria World Cup Blog

October 13th, 2007 | By: WC Bob | 3 Comments »

OK. Please forgive me. This is where I should be writing. So, below you will see that I have already posted a comment to my blog.
Anyrot!
Austria. Of course they are underdogs in this tournament. Scoring a goal will be celebrated like a victory. A victory will be celebrated like winning the tournament. And will you blame them?

Let’s face it. Sometimes a generation of mothers ends up not producing a talented crop of soccer players. It happens.

But let’s not count them out completely just yet. Home field is an invaluable advantage. Would France have won the World Cup in 1998 without it? Would the Koreans have played so well without their home field advantage in 2002?

By the way, let’s keep our eyes open for what happens to Paul Scharner of Wigan Athletic. This is a player who has been voted ‘Most Manly’ soccer player on the planet (according to Wikipedia), and who quit playing for Austria because he was worried it would unteach him the skills he picked up since leaving the alpine republic. Apparently he’s had a change of heart and would indeed like to represent Austria in the Euro. As you can imagine, his would-be teammates are just a wee bit hesitant to give him the red carpet treatment just yet.

Don’t hesitate to post comments. Peter

Tags: Austria, Blogers, Team News, Writers

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Comments

By Hans | February 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am

Not surprised to see there has not been a single comment on this site since it opened. Soccer is not Austria’ strength. But they produce the world’s greatest skiers, so why worry ? And they are still joint hosts of Euro ‘08, and everybody will come as Austria is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and Austrians are wonderful hosts ! I know because I lived there for five years. So “Immer wieder, Oesterreich !”

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By Peter | March 23rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Hi. So, somebody has written to my blog. Wonderful. My name is Peter and I will be trying to keep people informed about the Austrian National Soccer Team.

I’d like to start off with disputing this notion that soccer is not Austria’s strength. While that may be the case, anyone who has been to the country will know that Austrians are no less soccer crazy than any other nation in Europe. Perhaps with the exception of the English. What they lack is simple. Talent.
Having said that, the European Championship is a tournament in which luck is maybe just as important as talent. A missed penalty kick can mean the difference between glory and obscurity. Just ask Patrick Kluivert (Euro 2000).

Speaking of the Dutch- on paper, they should blow the Austrians away. But we’ll see. Anyhow, the team for the game against Nederlands:
Goal:
Manninger, Macho, Payer.
Defense:
Garics, Gercaliu, Hiden, Pogatetz, Prödl, Stranzl.
Midfield:
Fuchs, Ivanschitz, Leitgeb, Prager, Säumel, Mörz, Standfest, Weissenberger.
Forwards:
Harnik, Kienast, Linz.

Apparently coach Hickersberger wants to use the same team as he played against Germany. But there has been some mention of using Macho as the starting keeper.

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