Alexander Schlager made the race for the place in goal

Even before the departure of the Austrian national football team to Brussels, ÖFB team boss Ralf Rangnick had informed the former LASK goalkeeper Alexander Schlager that he had made the race for the place in goal against Belgium. This wasn’t a big surprise. Schlager was the big favorite in this four-man duel.

With the impressions in training and the fact that he had played every game at LASK up to four weeks ago, Rangnick justified the choice in the search for a replacement for Heinz Lindner, who was suffering from testicular cancer. For Schlager it will be the eighth international match of his career.

He made his debut in 2019 in a 2-1 win at home against Macedonia in the European Championship qualifier. This was followed by two appearances in autumn 2020 in the UEFA Nations League in a 2-1 win in Norway and a 2-3 win at home against Romania before a muscle injury threw him back in the national team. Three months before the EURO in 2021, he was the first choice again before the then team boss Franco Foda replaced Daniel Bachmann after a 2-2 draw against Scotland, a 3-1 win over the Faroe Islands and, above all, a 0-4 draw at home against Denmark decided as the EM goalie.

Since then, Schlager had only had international minutes for one half in the 1-0 win against Andorra in November 2022. In the future, the substitute bench should also flourish in the national team. It is not yet certain whether Salzburg’s first-choice goalkeeper Philipp Köhn will leave the club for a foreign country. But even in the event of a sale, there is a great danger that a goalkeeper will be brought in and that Schlager will only have one place on the substitutes’ bench at his new club RB Salzburg. And without game practice, team boss Rangnick will probably have to look for other options.