Victory against Poland: Rangnick with special praise for 5 players

In the second European Championship game, his team lived up to expectations, and the reward is a place in the round of 16. Even a narrow defeat in the final group game on Tuesday against the Netherlands should be enough, but Rangnick warned: “Mathematically, we are not through yet. We will still need at least one point.”

• also read: Austria’s chances of reaching the round of 16: This is how it currently looks

Despite all caution, victory in the “play-off game”, as Rangnick called the duel with the Poles, could mean a jump into the knockout phase, because four of the six best third-placed teams in the group will advance. “Since I became team manager, this was definitely the most important game. That’s why we are all very happy about the victory and, to a large extent, about the performance,” explained Rangnick.

The ÖFB team started strongly, then fell behind and finally secured the three points thanks to an improvement after the break. “The first 20 minutes were almost perfect, we should have been leading by more. After that we gave the game away a bit and were careless with our possession. In the second half we clearly had the match under control,” summed up the German. Under his leadership, the ÖFB team kept a clean sheet nine times in a row after the break – this was last achieved between 1973 and 1975.

“Head Matter”

Rangnick described the setback in the second half as a “mental thing”. Some of his players had already been underperforming. “We had a big gap in performance at the beginning. Four or five players were outstanding, others underperformed. But we cannot allow four or five players to remain below their normal form,” stressed the 65-year-old. “But after the break everything was different.”

At the press conference after the game, Rangnick initially explained that he did not want to single out any of his players, “because we live from team spirit.” A little later, there was special praise. Nicolas Seiwald was specifically mentioned (Rangnick: “For me, that was his best game since I became team manager”), 2-1 assister Alexander Prass, penalty taker Marko Arnautovic, Philipp Lienhart (“Great performance”) and goalscorer Gernot Trauner, who had to leave the game with a muscle injury (“I hope it works out by Tuesday”).

June 21st as a lucky day

The latter two formed the new central defence, while Kevin Danso and Maximilian Wöber, who played in the 0-1 defeat against France, were dropped from the starting line-up. “It wasn’t an easy decision for me, but I’m glad I chose the two of them,” said Rangnick.

Thanks to the right selection of personnel, it was ensured that June 21 is traditionally a lucky day for the Austrian national team. In 1978, the “Miracle of Cordoba” took place on this day, in 1982 the World Cup victory over Algeria and in 2021 the 1-0 win against Ukraine at the European Championship. Thanks to the success three years ago, the ÖFB men’s team advanced to the EURO round of 16 for the first time in history – and that is exactly what they want to achieve on Tuesday.