LINZ. “That was so cool with Ralf (team boss Ralph RangnickNote), as he said: “You, the Austrian is a bit morbid, the Austrian is a bit self-ironic. If we now say: red-white-red, the flags up, that would be completely wrong,” said Paul Pizzera yesterday at his guest performance in the Raiffeisen Arena in Linz. At the end of this process was the ÖFB-EM song “Hoch gwimmas (n)imma”, which was performed in a double pass with Christopher Seiler and Daniel Fellner was produced and will of course also be heard today.
The ÖFB team boss is also very well informed about Austria’s football history. “Of course I know where the expression ‘High gwimmas nimma’ comes from. Our sporting director knows even more precisely Peter Schoettelwho played next to a central defender in the 0:9 against Spain in Valencia Toni Pfeffer who said those words in an interview at halftime,” Rangnick said with a smile. And he also revealed that the idea for this song came about during an extended bus trip. “After the 2-0 win against Italy sat on the bus and drove from the stadium to the hotel. First our video analyst, Stefan Oesen, played his playlist of Austropop songs that our German trainers already needed a translation for. Then the players played everything from Seiler & Speer, Pizzera & Jaus to Wanda. And because the mood was so good, they then said to the bus driver: Come on, let’s do an extra lap around the Ring…”. That night at the hotel bar, the idea came up that we could simply write our own song for the need EM qualification.” Christopher Seiler told of a moment of shock. “At first I thought it was about the ÖBB and that we should write a song for the trains that would take us to Germany for the EURO. Then I was glad it was about the ÖFB…”
Rangnick was also always involved in the creation of the song. Pizzera told a special anecdote: “Mr. Rangnick’s soft spot for WhatsApp voice messages is particularly pronounced – it already had the character of an audio book. We discussed for a long time how much self-mockery can be in such a song. And I think we have we found a very good middle ground together.”
