Austria
National embarrassment?
Austria is a country of great minds, great hospitality, excellent skiers, but also of confirmed pessimists. Euro 2008 will bring the co-hosts close to £300million and create almost 11,000 jobs. Moreover, for one month the country will be showcased all over the globe, promoting the sights and sounds of the Alpine nation. But most Austrians expect the national team to make a complete exhibition of themselves and thus severely harm the country’s image.
Preparations for the “big party” are in full swing. Building on the experience of hosting two winter Olympics and several skiing world championships, Formula One grands prix and continental club football finals, there is no doubt that Euro 2008 will be a perfectly organised and high-quality sporting event.
Also, an entire cultural programme has been created to run concurrently, with renowned opera singers, photographers and painters all preparing works for the event.
Low expectations
But the expectations of the team are much lower. For a start, there is the recent form – just one win and seven defeats in the last 14 games. And, of course, because Austria are hosting the finals, all these recent fixtures have been friendlies, meaning they lack competitive practice. On top of that, the team are appearing at their first European finals (they reached the quarter-finals in 1960, in the days when only the semi-finals and Final were staged in the same country).
Such are the fears of embarrassment in June that Austrian greats Hans Krankl and Toni Polster have both urged the players to pull themselves together.
But the problems have continued, with coach Josef Hickersberger – in his second spell in charge – falling out with England-based players Emanuel Pogatetz and Paul Scharner, for which he was roundly criticised. Pogatetz, the Middlesbrough defender, is back on board, but Scharner, the Wigan midfielder/defender, who labelled the FA organisation a shambles, is now likely to miss out on the finals.
Scharner controversially quit the international fold in 2006 after criticising Hickersberger and the Austria set-up. The pair met in a bid to clear the air but Hickersberger was in no mood to back down. He said: “Paul told me he would be willing to play for Austria again at Euro 2008. But I had said when he quit that his decision to leave the team meant he was giving up on that possibility.
“On top of that, he aimed a lot of comments at the national team immediately after his withdrawal which were not all helpful to a successful working relationship.
“For this tournament, where we are clearly massive outsiders, we need to be a really closely-knit team.”
Interview with Austria coach Josef Hickersberger
Interview with Austria's Andreas Ivanschitz
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