Ok, here’s a question: what are the two things that come to your mind the moment you think of Austria and Spain football teams?
Don’t take more than five seconds!
For me, Spain brings back memories of 1982, their blazing red jersey, the 2010 triumph, while thinking about Austria, the ignominious 1982 match between Germany and Austria, where the two sides seemed to have played a fixed game to edge out Algeria, aptly dubbed in Football history as the ‘Disgrace of Gijon’.
Interestingly, Austria and Algeria were in the same group in 2026 and the sides played out a pulsating 3-3 draw.
This time, of course, there wasn’t any machinations to leave Algeria behind.
The Desert Warriors also moved to the round of 32 and will be facing Switzerland.
Austria is not a major footballing force, and the team is hardly a side which gets one’s pulse racing.
Apologies for being blunt!
They do play a fast-paced precision passing based game.
In 1954, Austria was trounced in the semi-final by eventual champions West Germany by 6-1 but won the third place deciding match by 3-1 against Uruguay.
Naturally, if asked most football aficionados will back Spain in this match and, perhaps, there’s logic behind it.
The Spanish Armada faced a hiccup against newcomers Cape Verde when they were held to a nil all draw but got their act together against Saudi Arabia and Uruguay, winning both by 4-0 and 1-0 respectively.
Spain’s moment of glory came in 2010 when they lifted the cup for the first time.
At that time, the famous Spanish ‘Tiki Taka’ style passing became the topic of discussion.
Spain still uses short passes, delivered swiftly.
Austria will have to thwart the build-up of the Spanish attack and rely on a ‘go on the counter when possible’ method.
A little bit of history here: Austrian-Hungarian coach, late George Kottan, was the architect of Bangladesh’s first SAFF Football glory in 2003.
Under Kottan, Bangladesh had a dream team back then: Aminul Islam, the goalkeeper, currently the state minister for sports, Hassan Al Mamun, Kanchan, Alfaz, Joy, Rajani, Titu, Saiful and others.
That SAFF trophy was our last regional success.
Meanwhile, our last coach was a Spaniard: Javier Cabrera.
This writer went out of Dhaka recently and saw a few Spanish flags on top of buildings – a sign that there are supporters of Spain.
The Spanish jersey has sold well, as I was told by a hawker in Gulistan.
The Austrians will certainly put up a brave fight but unless there’s a major upset, the Armada might just move ahead.
