‘We’re determined to make the play-offs’

Austria won the first leg in Romania last week 2–1 thanks to goals from Vasilije Marković and Sanel Šaljić. In their home match, the Veilchen are now looking to secure their place in the UEFA Conference League play-offs. There, they would face the winner of the tie between SC Braga and Dinamo Minsk. The favourites, the Portuguese side, narrowly won the first leg 1–0 in front of their home crowd; the second leg between the two potential opponents takes place on Thursday at 7.00 pm.

The ball will then start rolling in Vienna’s Favoriten district from 8.30 pm: “When you’ve worked so hard to put yourself in such a strong position, you naturally want to reach the play-offs. We want to celebrate a home win with our fans and progress to the next round,” says Reinhold Ranftl.

Headcoach Stephan Helm knows that Austria still have a tough task ahead of them: “Our away win puts us in a good position, but Beitar Jerusalem were the strong opponents we expected – they play with courage and give their all. That was particularly evident in the first leg, especially in the opening stages. We analysed the first half very critically; we had problems with the way they played against us. After that, however, we reacted properly, won the ball back more often and played better into space.” 

Looking at the match over the full 90 minutes, the win was ultimately deserved and could even have been by a bigger margin given the chances we created in the second half. “One of our strengths is that we can maintain our game for the full 90 minutes. That’s also down to the fact that we have great confidence in our systems and our style of play. Together with the fans who travelled with us to Romania, there was a fantastic atmosphere in the stadium during the first leg,” says Helm.

Team news

Johannes Eggestein is a doubt. Philipp Wiesinger, Noah Botić and Manprit Sarkaria remain unavailable.