After being the subject of numerous rumors this past off-season, Austrian midfielder Jürgen Säumel has signed a three-year contract with Torino of Serie A. The twenty-three year-old former captain of Austrian Bundesliga SK Sturm Graz joins a capable midfield that includes Italy capped World Cup Champion Simone Barone and Alessandro Rosina. This is a superb move for Jürgen and one that I know Torino will reap tremendous rewards for.

As you can tell by the score the Red Bulls came to play and their fluid passing devastated the Armenian squad, who unfortunately were missing four players due to Visa problems. Equally the turf field in Salzburg definitely caused them problems and was more suited to the Salzburg-style of “total football”. Brilliant victory for Salzburg and a step forward, albeit a small one, for Austrian Football.

Scoresheet
1:0 I. Sekagya (22.)
2:0 L. Ngwat Mahop (29.)
3:0 A. Zickler (35.)
4:0 S. Tchoyi (38.)
5:0 L. Ngwat Mahop (46.)
6:0 E. Öbster (48.)
7:0 A. Zickler (65.) -

Prior to posting this, Red Bull has added two goals in the first five minutes to bring it to 5-0. I’ll post a full update at the conclusion.

In the Austrian Bundesliga today, the early season clash between Red Bull Salzburg and Rapid Wien (Vienna) ended in a 2-2 draw before a near capacity crowd of 17,000 fans at Hanappi Stadium. The match got off to a fast start with Wien’s Jimmy Hoffer nearly scoring in the first minute but is was Red Bull that opened the scoring with Marc Janko finding the back of net at the ninth minute and completely controlling possession in the first fifteen minutes. Steffen Hofmann (17) tied the game before Marc Janko added another for his improbable fifth goal of the season, once again giving Red Bull the lead. Only five minutes later Stefan Maierhofer (31) scored to bring the match to its final conclusion. Likely the only way to slow Marc Janko’s scoring assault was injury and before the end of the half, he was pulled with a slight muscle strain the match. The match was not without incident as it was a particularly chippy aware, with questionable heavy fouls, six yellow cards and Red Bull playing the last forty minutes one man down as Louis Ngwat Mahop was shown a red card.

However the real story of the day may have been forever-young Ivica Vastić leading LASK Linz with two goals in route to a 3-1 victory over SC Rheindorf Altach. LASK Linz now sits atop the Bundesliga table with six points in their first two matches, two points ahead of Red Bull Salzburg.

Ümit Korkmaz, the swift Midfielder from Vienna who showed so much promise at the recent Euros, broke his foot yesterday in his first day of practicing with his new club Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga. Reports indicated that the injury will not require surgery but Ümit is expected to be out till mid to late September. This will naturally interfere with the national squads World Cup qualifying matches and a decision will need to be made on his replacement. All the best in a speedy recovery!

Red Bull Salzburg got off to a perfunctory start of the Bundesliga season with a 6-0 demolition of SV Mattersburg. In a flowing orchestration, new manager Co Adriaanse, pushed the team forward in a ruthless attacking style using a 4-3-3 assault. The squad possess a high pedigree roster of internationally capped players such as Croatian captain Niko Kovač, Serbian Saša Ilić and Japan’s Tsuneyasu Miyamoto as well as Austria’s own Ronald Gërçaliu, Christoph Leitgeb and René Aufhauser

The man-of-the-match was certainly the always prolific Striker Marc Janko who drove three goals (32 pen; 35, 50) into the back of the net as if an exclamation point on the question of why he was left off the national squad. Somen Tchoyi, a new addition to the squad opened the campaign with resounding header off a set-piece by Austrian Ernst Öbster at the eleven minute mark. It was a stunning debut for Somen who just joined the club from Stabæk Fotball of the Norwegian Premier League. The other goals came from twenty year-old Cameroonian Striker Louis Ngwat-Mahop (38) while AZ, FC Utrecht veteran Robin Nelisse netted the final goal of the match at the seventy-first minute.

These Super Bulls take on defending champion Rapid Wien in Vienna on Saturday. Rapid Wien started the season off with a dreary 3-1 loss to SK Puntigamer Sturm Graz.

The Austrian Bundesliga gets started tonight with a premier match of Sturm Graz vs. Rapid Wien today with the Green-Whites (Rapid) expected to get off to an impressive start.

Defending champions Rapid Wien have a host of players that are key to national team development and should be carefully watched including Andreas Dober and Veli Kavlak of the U21 squad, national team members Martin Hiden and Erwin “Jimmy” Hoffer (national team) as well as imposing Striker Stefan Maierhofer who was a surprising late cut from the Euro squad. Jürgen Säumel was Sturm Graz’s lone member on the recent Euro squad for Austria. I’ll be watching this match closely and post relevant information.

Tomorrow we have four great matches on the bill:

Red Bull Salzburg v Mattersburg
Austria Wien v SK Kärnten
Kapfenberg v LASK Linz
SV Ried v SCR Altach