The federation officials at Austria’s pre-match press conference in Vienna acknowledged their coach’s birthday and Marcel Koller smiled a smile that suggested relief more than impending celebration. Like his employers, the Swiss will surely embrace any opportunity to draw a line under his last 12 months but it will this evening before we see if turning 56 has brought a change in his fortunes.
Three years ago Ireland came to Vienna and lost to a rapidly improving young side in which David Alaba was the standout star. The defeat cost Giovanni Trapattoni his job and Austria crept into the world’s top 50, overtaking Ireland, who were going in the opposite direction.
As Alaba matured under Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich and another longstanding prospect, Aleksandar Dragovic, came of age too, Koller was able to get the best of more established talents like Julian Baumgartlinger, Marko Arnautovic and Martin Harnik. Together, the team kept climbing until they were a top-10 side and safely on their way to the Euros last summer, their first major tournament (which they had not co-hosted) since 1998.
It all started to go wrong, though, this time last year when spirits were high and Switzerland came to town for a friendly. Austria had coasted through their Euro 2016 qualifying group, beating Russia home and away and finishing eight points ahead of their closest rivals. But they lost 2-1 to the Swiss.
Good fortune
In the previous 12 months, Koller had seen his side lose once, to Brazil; in the next 12 there would be friendly defeats of Albania and Malta as well as an opening qualifying win in Georgia that involved a fair amount of good fortune.
Critically, though, there was a disastrous European Championship finals. Despite an apparently kind draw (Hungary, Portugal and Iceland), Austria took just one group point – against the eventual champions, as it happens – and so went home early.
The team had travelled as a lot of people’s long shot for the title and at home supporters well used to their national side being utterly outshone by neighbours in almost every direction enthusiastically bought into the notion that their own day had come.
As it turned out, the pundits were about as wide of the mark as the political pollsters tend to be these days and the scale of the expectation they had helped to generate only deepened the sense of disappointment. Results against Wales and Serbia last month did little to lighten the mood.
Having previously seen Koller take the side so far, there is, apparently, a strong sense of loyalty to him around the federation. But fans and, somewhat inevitably, the press are far less certain. "After the Euros, it feels a little like getting back with your girlfriend after a bad break-up," says Andreas Hegenauer of Der Standard. "Okay, so you are back together but there really isn't the same sense of trust as before."
Unease
Oddly, while there is that sense of unease about Koller, Alaba has been on the receiving end of whatever anger there has been with the 24-year-old taking the brunt of the criticism for the performances in the opening three qualifiers of this campaign.
Part of the problem is that a lot of locals would like to see their star player play at left back, the position he more often than not occupies for Bayern. Koller, despite the retirement, post-France, of Leicester’s Christian Fuchs, prefers to use him in midfield where he plays alongside Baumgartlinger, whose ability to cover ground and close down opponents allows Alaba the freedom to roam forward.
The whole issue has provided a strangely specific focus for the current sense of dissatisfaction with Alaba, who has become a surprising scapegoat for the team’s wider failings. Koller, however, tries to steer clear of it and spent more time yesterday talking about the need to strike a better balance between attack and defence than the recent one goal conceded for every one scored.
“Now it’s important for us to focus on our defence again and work hard on that,” he said rather cheerfully. “But of course, we have to try to score as well. We should pay attention to not concede too many goals and score more.”
Easy confidence
On the training ground, one suspects, his words are more detailed and a lot more forcefully delivered. But the fact is, as his captain acknowledges, the easy confidence of the Euro qualification campaign has deserted this Austria side and this could well be a good time to be coming here.
“If it is a positive game, you can look forward and you can be successful but, on the other hand, results are the most important thing and our results have not been that good.
“After the European qualification round, everyone speculated that we were going to be really successful at the Euros but it’s hard to describe. Sometimes when you are in a flow, everything takes care of itself and then everything is positive. We have to think positively and we know we can come back.”
Any sort of result for Ireland would make a comeback in this campaign an awful lot harder and, most likely, prolong that sense of forlorn introspection into the new year, And that, Koller will know, might just persuade the hosts to call it quits with the birthday boy and mark the arrival of 2017 by making a fresh start.
