2023-10-15 08:27:50
Austria’s national soccer team can come up with a surprise at the end of the European Championship qualification. Rapid striker Guido Burgstaller is making a comeback in the ÖFB team four years after the end of his team career. The 34-year-old is already making the trip to the qualifying game on Monday (6 p.m./live ORF 1) in Azerbaijan. The ÖFB announced this on Sunday shortly before the final training in Vienna.
“It’s an unusual situation, so it’s just an unusual measure,” said team boss Ralf Rangnick, explaining his decision. “I know that he had actually already retired. But he is still fit enough to score a lot of goals in the Austrian league. He is certainly one of Rapid’s key players. When he was missing, they struggled Winning games.”
Burgstaller declared his international career over in 2019 under team boss Franco Foda. The Carinthian was playing for Schalke 04 at the time. The attacker made his last short appearance for the national team in June 2019 in North Macedonia (4:1). A few days earlier, he had scored the extremely important 1-0 winning goal against Slovenia as a “joker” in Klagenfurt on the way to participating in the European Championship.
The ÖFB team is currently struggling with several failures in the storm center. After Marko Arnautovic and Karim Onisiwo, Michael Gregoritsch also had to definitely cancel the trip to Baku on Saturday. On Friday against Belgium (2:3), Rangnick threw a team debutant into the deep end with Manprit Sarkaria from Sturm Graz at the front line. Wolverhampton legionnaire Sasa Kalajdzic came on as a substitute, but doesn’t seem ready for the full 90 minutes after tearing his second cruciate ligament last year.
“We no longer have so many options in the central attack area,” explained Rangnick. Kalajdzic “certainly cannot play longer than 60 minutes”. “That’s why it was about having another trained center forward back in the squad.” Burgstaller was “spontaneously ready” and went to the team camp on Sunday morning. There was no discussion about a longer-term commitment. “It’s just for this game, nothing else is important,” said Rangnick.
Burgstaller had to take a break from Rapid since the end of August due to a torn adductor tendon and was therefore not on the ÖFB’s call-off list. On Thursday, the veteran returned with two goals in the rapid test against Vienna. A competitive comeback was planned for after the international break. Now things could go faster: with a surprise appearance in Baku in a game in which Austria would secure their ticket to the 2024 European Championship in Germany (June 14th to July 14th) with a win.
Burgstaller has proven his goal threat in Germany at 1. FC Nürnberg, Schalke and FC St. Pauli. In the summer of 2022, the striker returned to Rapid and immediately became top scorer with 21 league goals. Burgstaller is not only captain and key player for the Hütteldorfers, but also an absolute crowd favorite. He has so far scored two goals in 25 senior team appearances for Austria. He ended his ÖFB career four years ago citing his health and family.
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