So on Thursday night, it’s off to Austria we go.
And what awaits us is not just the best team in the country by some distance but also arguably the form team of all of European football.
Yes, that is how daunting the task that awaits us is.
Their form so far this season has been incredible having claimed 13 wins from 15 matches with no defeats in all competitions and 42 goals scored in the process so yeah…………..a tough one.
Firstly some history on the club and though they have actually existed since 1933 they were taken over by Austrian soft drinks manufacturer Red Bull as far back as 2005 and subsequently renamed as Red Bull Salzburg.
A name change was no stranger to them as they had been rebranded several times before in their history due to various sponsorship deals with their traditional name being SV Austria Salzburg.
They had also been pretty successful pre-Red Bull having won the league three times in the 90’s when known as Casino Salzburg but things have really taken off since being snapped up by everyone’s second or third favourite energy drink.
Indeed since then, they have captured nine Austrian Bundesliga titles and five Austrian Cups. The current Austrian league champions they have won the last five championships in a row and look odds-on for a sixth straight title.
Of course, we played them in this very competition only four short years ago and actually did quite well against them nicking a 2-2 draw – anyone remember the sensational Mubarak Wakaso??? No? – on their patch and then going down 3-1 at home though we were unlucky to not get something that night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_c_0TatCW0
Officially after company restructuring Red Bull are just the sponsor now so that both they and RasenBallsport Leipzig, also owned by Red Bull, could both play in continental competition at the same time – last years Champions League and this seasons Europa – so as to satisfy UEFA’s competition laws but there is no doubt who is still financing them as the chocolate fireguard that is UEFA sits idly by.
To go along with their imperious domestic form in Europe, they have been no slouch either and made last season’s UEFA Europa League semi-final where they lost out 3-2 on aggregate to eventual runners-up Olympic Marseille. Along the way, they eliminated Real Sociedad, Borussia Dortmund and Lazio.
Their home ground is the imaginatively titled Red Bull Arena in the picturesque setting of Wals-Siezenheim just outside Salzburg. Built in 2003 and renovated two years later by the new owners it holds just under 32,000.
Their manager is the 42-year-old German Marco Rose who gained the hot seat in the summer of 2017 – the tenth manager since Red Bull took over – and has suffered only six defeats in 74 competitive games. His previous experience was mainly with the Salzburg youth teams where he enjoyed incredible success including winning the Europa Youth League title in 2017 after beating Manchester City, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona en route to the final.
The men to watch out for are numerous but I’ll stick to the strikers for now.
Israeli internationalist Moanes Dabour scored 29 goals in 52 games last season whilst his Japanese internationalist strike partner Takumi Minamino has 46 goals in 145 games in total for them.
Dabour already has 13 goals so far this season so safe to say he’s pretty tasty and Norwegian internationalist striker Fredrik Gulbrandsen popped up with a late winner against Leipzig last time out in the Europa League. There’s also Bosnian internationalist marksman Smail Prevljak who has six goals in nine games this term.
No doubting they have firepower then but the midfield and defence are packed with talent too and that’s even considering they lost two of their best players in the summer, defender Duje Ćaleta-Car to Marseille for €19 million and influential midfielder Valon Berisha for €7.5 million to Lazio.
Other players to be mindful of are Mali internationals Amadou Haidara and Diadie Samassekou as well as Austrian internationalist Xaver Schlager. All are 22 or under, products of the youth academy and play in their pretty relentlessly attacking midfield.
They also added a bit of steel with veteran Austrian midfielder Zlatko Junuzović joining in the summer after he has spent six years with Werder Bremner where he played over 200 games to go with his international 55 caps.
An exciting and dynamic team they play a preferred 4-4-2 formation with a diamond midfield, a compact defence and a high and organised press leading to comparisons with Jurgen Klopp’s exciting style that has been deployed at both Borussia Dortmund and now Liverpool.
This season they have won nine straight league matches and are seven points clear at the top as well as winning two cup matches.
Their most recent outing saw them pummel Wolfsberger AC 4-1 in front of what looked like a car park at the back of an athletics track. Highlights if you’re interested are at the bottom. And we complain about Hamilton Accies stadium.
They have also gone unbeaten in Europe in five games beating KF Shkëndija, the Champions of Macedonia, 4-1 on aggregate in the Champions League qualifiers before going out on away goals to Red Star Belgrade of Serbia in the play-off round after a 2-2 home draw following on from a 0-0 away result. They actually threw that one away having been 2-0 up after 48 mins only to concede two goals in 60 second midway through the second half.
In their Europa League group opener, they defeated Leipzig 3-2 winning it in the 89th minute having thrown away another two-goal lead in the second half.
So what of our chances?
Realistically slim and none.
We’ve won twice in our last nine away games in Europe suffering five defeats and conceding 20 goals in the process. Though we have scored 12 goals ourselves it’s just that when we do we tend to concede far more goals up at the other end of the pitch.
If you go further back the grimmer it becomes and even domestically this season we are struggling on the road having not won a league game away in three attempts and only won one on the road out of four in the continent as well.
It will be interesting to see a team have a real go at us right enough as this season we have dominated possession whilst up against teams that have by and large played 11 men behind the ball and asked us to break them down. On their home patch, in particular, expect RB Salzburg to come out of the traps fast with a high tempo game. Our passing obsession could in theory totally derail that and frustrate them though it could equally collapse in the face of their likely furious pressing.
I really think it is a game for Rogic to make an impact with his running on the break from midfield and Brown will have to play out of his skin to contain them in the opposite direction. Though in saying that every one of our players will have to play out of their skins going by the form book.
In theory, we should at least be able to compete and lets no pretend that Salzburg are on the level of what we came up against last season in Bayern and in particular PSG but still, history tells you that we shrink more often than not in foreign climbs no matter what the opposition and this particular team are confident, winning and basically are on fire so like I said before it is going to be tough and expectation levels for what is undoubtedly going to be the toughest game of the group will be low but hey at least we are getting the one we dreaded most out of the way first.
Though you never know………but you probably do.
....Always A Tim! 