Austria brings twelve players from the Bundesliga and good form to their neighbours. But the biggest star is missing!

With good form and twelve players from the very good German Bundesliga, Austria went to the seventeenth European Football Championship. However, the biggest star will not play in Germany due to injury.

Only the fourth participation in the European Championship was celebrated last autumn in Austria. Our southern neighbours made it through qualifying Group F, in which they came from second place to finish just one point behind the victorious Belgium.

Moreover, the experienced coach Ralf Rangnick’s charges are heading to Germany with a great form, having lost only one match in the last year, when they fell short in the Euro qualification to Belgium (3:2). Otherwise, they recorded eight wins and three draws.

The experienced German has nominated four players from Rapid Vienna (Hedl, Querfeld, Seidl, Grüll), only one from the champions Styria Hradec Kral ove (Prass) and one from the usual hegemon of recent years Salzburg (Daniliuc).

The stars of Dortmund, Bayern and Leipzig are missing, the injured Alaba

Maximilian Entrup (Hartberg), the third top scorer of last season, is still out of the domestic competition. The rest of the squad is made up of compatriots, with twelve players from the German Bundesliga and others from Italy, France and the Netherlands.

The biggest stars are Marcel Sabitzer (Dortmund), Konrad Laimer (Bayern), Christoph Baumgartner (Leipzig) and Florian Grillitsch (Hoffenheim). Italy’s champion with Inter is the ageless goalscorer Marko Arnautovic, who is still performing well at thirty-five.

But the team’s biggest figure will not be on the pitch. The usual captain David Alaba is missing due to injury. The defensive all-rounder of Real Madrid will support his teammates at least in the implementation team.

In Group D, the Alpine country will face a very tough line-up. They will open the tournament on Monday 17 June against world champions France. Next up are duels with the unpredictable Poland and the offensively very strong Netherlands.

Austria’s nominations for the European Championships:

Goalkeepers:
Niklas Hedl (Rapid Vienna)
Patrick Pentz (Bröndby)
Heinz Lindner (Saint-Gilloise)

Defenders:
Gernot Trauner (Feyenoord Rotterdam)
Maximilian Wöber (Mönchengladbach)
Kevin Danso (Lens)
Philipp Lienhart (Freiburg)
Philipp Mwene (Mainz)
Stefan Posch (Bologna)
Flavius Daniliuc (Salzburg)
Leopold Querfeld (Rapid Vienna)

Midfielders:
Konrad Laimer (Bayern Munich)
Marcel Sabitzer (Borussia Dortmund)
Christoph Baumgartner (Leipzig)
Florian Grillitsch (Hoffenheim)
Florian Kainz (1. FC Cologne)
Romano Schmid (Werder Bremen)
Patrick Wimmer (Wolfsburg)
Nicolas Seiwald (Leipzig)
Matthias Seidl (Rapid Wien)
Alexander Prass (Sturm Graz)
Marco Grüll (Rapid Vienna)

Forwards:
Marko Arnautovic (Inter Milan)
Michael Gregoritsch (Freiburg)
Andreas Weimann (West Bromwich Albion)
Maximilian Entrup (Hartberg)

Austria’s matches in the group stage:

Austria vs. France (17 June 21:00)
Posko vs. Austria (21 June 18:00)
Netherlands vs. Austria (25 June 18:00)

Source: UEFA, Swiss national football team