“We want to do better in the second half of the championship round”

“Every match is a highlight and gives us the chance to test ourselves against the best teams in the Bundesliga. It’s also an important opportunity to assess where we stand and see what’s realistic for us. That makes it all the more important that we now reward ourselves for the effort we’ve put in over the past few weeks. We have to stick to our game plan and aim to do better in the second half of the championship group than we did in the first five games,” says coach Stephan Helm.

In the first five rounds of the championship group, Austria earned four points—thanks to a win in Hartberg and a draw in the derby. They suffered defeats against Sturm, LASK, and Salzburg. “These are top-tier matches that are often decided by small details. If we manage to stay highly focused for the entire 90 minutes and put in a performance like we did in the second half against Salzburg, we can get more out of these games,” explains the Austria coach.

In Sunday’s home game against Salzburg, the Veilchen put in contrasting performances in each half—from both, the coaching staff and the team were able to gain valuable insights: “We need to play with more courage and have more confidence in ourselves than we did in the first half. At the same time, we have to be aware that Salzburg possesses tremendous quality and punishes mistakes immediately. In the first half, we often didn’t make the right decisions and also had a lot of room for improvement in our execution. At halftime, we agreed that we could do much better. I expect that Salzburg—just like us—will make small adjustments. The key will be for us to deliver our performance over the full 90 minutes,” explains Stephan Helm.

Team News

Johannes Eggestein remains sidelined due to injury. The forward is staying in Vienna and undergoing individual training—with the goal of being ready to play again on Sunday in Graz. Philipp Maybach, on the other hand, will return to the squad on Wednesday.