"We’re determined to win our home match"

Austria Wien go into Thursday’s second leg of the second qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League against FK Liepāja at 8.30 pm, holding a 2–0 lead from the first leg in Latvia. Despite the two-goal lead, the approach for the home match in Vienna is clear: “We want to exploit the spaces our opponents give us straight away and set a high tempo. We’re definitely going into the home match with the aim of winning it,” emphasises manager Stephan Helm.

The result from the first leg in Jūrmala provides a good foundation, but: “The job isn’t done yet. We need to approach the second leg with full focus as well. I’m convinced that we’ll see a hungry Austria side on the pitch who are determined to secure promotion,” says Stephan Helm.

Following the 2–0 win in Latvia, Austria also boosted their confidence in the first round of the UNIQA ÖFB Cup with a 5–0 victory over Wiener Sport-Club: “The first two matches have shown that we’re putting in solid performances and conceding very little defensively – that’s very important to us. We’ve also worked on becoming more flexible during pre-season and adapting our style of play to the circumstances during the match. In my opinion, that’s what sets good teams apart. We’ve got better and better in this area over the last two years,” explains the Austria manager.

“Rotation was absolutely necessary”

Compared to last Thursday’s first leg against FK Liepāja, Stephan Helm made no fewer than seven changes to his team for Sunday’s cup match. Only Kang Hee Lee, Manfred Fischer, Sanel Šaljić and Johannes Eggestein were in the starting line-up for both matches; captain Fischer was the only player to play the full 90 minutes on both occasions.

“Rotation was absolutely necessary and more a question of availability. At the same time, we also place our full trust in all the players in our squad. We have many players with great potential. It is our aim to provide them with the platform to take the next step in their development. So far, the team that has taken to the pitch has always been the one we considered, for various reasons, to be the best starting XI for the match in question. It will be exactly the same in the return leg against Liepāja,” says Stephan Helm.

Squad update    

Striker Kelvin Boateng, who missed parts of pre-season and was sidelined through injury in the first two competitive matches, will return to the squad on Thursday. Aleksandar Dragović, who suffered a mild concussion in the cup tie against Sport-Club, will not be available on Thursday. Philipp Wiesinger is still recovering but is well on the way back. Apart from that, only the long-term injured Manprit Sarkaria and Noah Botić are missing. Botić is expected to resume team training in September, whilst Sarkaria will most likely return in January when winter pre-season begins.

Reunion with Marvin Martins

Opponents FK Liepāja, for whom Marvin Martins will return to the squad following his suspension, secured a 2–0 victory in the Latvian league on Sunday.

Should Austria progress, they would face the winner of the tie between AEK Larnaca and Beitar Jerusalem away from home as early as this coming Thursday, 6 August. The Israelis won the first leg in Cyprus 1–0. The return leg in Romania will kick off an hour before our home match, i.e. at 7.30 pm on Thursday.