Football Season Guide

Sturm are coming from a rather successful season as they managed to finish 3d and qualify for Europe despite being met with plenty of scepticism before the campaign started. While not being able to match to the likes of Austria or Rapid and especially Salzburg financially, Sturm are a very well-run club with an excellent scouting record. They are, more often than not, capable of identifying talent and bringing in replacements for those who have left. This time around, however, there are no big holes in the squad for Franco Foda to try and plug, given that Baris Atik is the only regular to have left the club during the summer. The other players that departed went in a search of first-team football. The fact that they did not lose any key players did not prevent the Grazers from strengthening. They have brought in proven Bundesliga quality in Thorsten Rocher and Peter Zulj, who were both the stand-out performers at their respective clubs last season. Meanwhile, players such as Ivan Ljubic, Oliver Filip and Patrick Puchegger are stabs in the dark at this stage but, given the track record of Sturm's scouts, at least one of these players should be expected to become a regular this season. All in all, Sturm seem to be a touch stronger than they were last season but this is obviously no guarantee of European football, particularly as they will now also have to think about Rapid, who were pretty much out of the European picture last time around.