EXTRA TIME

Two Austrians in the PL

February 1, 2023 at 7:44 am Leave a comment

Two weeks ago rumour had it that Marko Arnautovic could be on his way back to the Premier League with Everton interested in bringing the Bologna forward in, but instead of Marko two other Austrians now are plying their trade in the world’s best football League: Maximilian Wöber and Marcel Sabitzer.

On transfer deadline day Manchedter United signed Austrian midfielder Marcel Sabitzer on loan from Bayern Munich. Full back Maximilian Wöber had completed his move to Leeds United earlier in the month, coming to the Premier League from RB Salzburg. He will be coached at Leeds by former Salzburg manager Jesse Marsch.

Both players also played successfully for Rapid Vienna some years ago:

Maxi Wöber played for Rapid from 2015 – 2017 when the Greens twice were runners-up in Austria’s Bundesliga, twice qualified for the group stages of the Europa League and once reached the knock-out round of the EL and the Austrian cup final. Wöber was quite young at this time, but everybody knew that he was a great defender in the making. He was transferred at the age of only 19 years to Ajax Amsterdam from where he went to Sevilla and then to RB Salzburg.

Marcel Sabitzer played more than forty League games for Rapid and scored 10 goals for them in 2013 and 2014, before he was signed by Red Bull and played in Salzburg as well as in Leipzig. 2021 he made a dream move to Bayern Munich where he was reunited with his former coach at Leipzig, Julian Nagelsmann. But as the midfielders playing time seemed to be limited at Bayern, he was allowed to leave on loan for the rest of the season.

I wish both players who also play for the Austrian national team every success for the second half of the season with United and Leeds respectively – albeit not if they come against West Ham United!

March 1st (FA Cup) Manchester United v. West Ham

May 6th (PL) West Ham v. Manchester United

May 20th (PL) West Ham v. Leeds United

Entry filed under: Uncategorized.