Football Season Guide

Despite qualifying for Europe, Austria have endured a disappointing 2018/19 campaign, given that their goal going into the season was to finish second, which they never looked like doing. Thomas Letsch was fired early in the spring season and Robert Ibertsberger spent the remainder of the campaign as their caretaker. His chances of getting the job full-time were always close to zero, given that the Violets already went down the route of appointing a previous caretaker with Letsch and opted for a more proven man this time around. They were able to tempt away Christian Ilzer from Wolfsberger, which is an appointment that will please the majority of their fans, given how well Austria's new manager did with his previous two clubs. Igor Julio, Cristian Cuevas and Uros Matic are all back with their parent club, while the list of arrivals consists of several stabs in the dark and a proven Bundesliga player in Stephan Zwierschitz. The squad therefore looks to be on a similar level compared to last season and Ilzer's job will be to improve the fortunes of a side that underperformed last season. Austria were particularly poor on their travels last time around, with scoring goals a particularly large problem, but Ilzer's attacking-minded approach suggests that this issue could be solved this time around.