Alexander Schlager returns to the ÖFB team after a year’s break: The 26-year-old was called up by team boss Ralf Rangnick for the Nations League games away against France (September 22) and at home against Croatia (September 25).
“Schlager has done a very good job for LASK so far,” explained the German why, in contrast to his first squad in June, he gave the captain of the athletes preference over Martin Fraisl (Bielefeld). Schlager has played for Austria six times so far, and despite being called up he will probably have to wait for his seventh appearance: Patrick Pentz was last convincing in the team and is also number one at his new club Reims.
Like Schlager, Andreas Ulmer is also returning. In June, Rangnick gave up the 36-year-old to find a solution for the future, but said at the time that “the door wasn’t closed”. Yesterday Rangnick invited the native of Linz again – also because his Salzburg teammate Maximilian Wöber, who last played the left defender in the ÖFB team, suffered from an adductor injury.
Austria has to do without Konrad Laimer, who is currently “the world’s best switching player” for Rangnick, because of his syndesmosis ligament injury, Sasa Kalajdzic will be out for a long time after his cruciate ligament tear. Romano Schmid replaced Laimer. “He has established himself as a regular at Werder and fits in well with the way we want to play,” said Rangnick, who nominated a second debutant in Muhammed Cham. “Cham is a regular at Clermont and one of the few players who not only goes into one or two players when dribbling at speed, but also gets past them.”
Arnautovic can replace Herzog
Rangnick also thinks offensively with regard to the duels with the world champion and the runner-up world champion. “We’ve shown that it’s possible to beat these teams and that’s the goal again this time,” said Rangnick, referring to the 3-0 away win over Croatia and 1-1 home win over France in June. If Marko Arnautovic is used in both games, he will become the new record team player: the 33-year-old is currently one game short of Andreas Herzog’s mark with 102 matches. The Bologna legionnaire currently tops the Serie A goalscoring chart.
Source: Nachrichten
