Graz ends can dominance: bizarre master creates Leverkusen moment in Austria

Graz ends can dominance
Bizarre master creates Leverkusen moment in Austria

By Kevin Schulte
May 21, 2024, 7:34 a.m

Sturm Graz dethroned series champions Red Bull Salzburg on Whitsunday and became the new Austrian football champions. Sturm has a two-point lead in the final table, but the team never managed to achieve this. How can that be?

What Bayer Leverkusen achieved in German football, SK Sturm Graz has achieved in Austria. The team from Styria won the last game of the season 2-0 against Austria Klagenfurt on Whitsun Sunday, crowning themselves champions and at the same time ending the years of dominance of the financially deprived Red Bull Salzburg players.

Sturm doesn’t manage a miraculous unbeaten streak like Leverkusen. Salzburg had previously “only” collected ten championships in a row and not eleven like FC Bayern. And yet the triumph of Graz cannot be overestimated. The financial differences between Red Bull and Sturm, which is also sponsored by a beverage brand (beer producer Puntigamer), are too great. “Perhaps Leverkusen’s title with this unbeaten series and the possible Europa League title is a little bit higher, but on the other hand it is put into perspective when you see Sturm’s means,” says the journalist and Sturm fan Kevin Barth in conversation with ntv.de.

Christian Jauk also seemed correspondingly disbelieving at the moment of success. “I’m at a loss for words,” said the Graz club president after the championship triumph on the last matchday and stated that he had “stepped away nervously at some point” during the trembling game. Then defender Gregory Wüthrich headed in from a corner to take the lead. Of all people, Wüthrich, who was actually already gone last transfer summer, but then failed the medical check at FC Augsburg.

Historic end in the championship final

For Graz it is the fourth championship triumph in the club’s history after 1998, 1999 and 2011. After ten titles in a row, Red Bull Salzburg has been dethroned.

In addition to being historic, the Graz success also has a curious note. After a total of 32 match days, Salzburg actually has the better record in the table. 67 points, a goal difference of +41. Graz also has 67 points, but only has a goal difference of +33. Why are the Styrians still champions? The special mode of the Austrian Bundesliga is the reason for the strange table picture.

In Austria, in the first phase of the season, the so-called basic round, all twelve teams play against each other in home and away games. After these 22 match days, Salzburg was four points ahead of Graz with 50 points. The first six teams in the table will then play against each other in another round trip to determine the champions. However, the points from the basic round are halved, so that Salzburg started with 25 points and Graz with 23 points in the so-called master group. Here Salzburg only got 17 points, but Graz got a strong 21, so that Sturm is two points ahead in the end, even though the team never got these two points on the green grass. Never before in Austria has the league leader lost the championship after the regular round. Until now.

Salzburg financially escaped

The fourth Graz championship triumph is also surprising because Salzburg has been financially ahead of the competition in recent years. The Mozartstadt squad is worth four times as much as the Graz team (according to Transfermarkt.de). For comparison: Bayern, with their 930 million euro squad, are “only” about a third higher than Leverkusen. Sure, such shenanigans don’t tell the whole story, but they at least write a chapter.

“Salzburg has regularly managed to generate transfer revenues in the double-digit million range in recent years. Sturm has only achieved this twice in the club’s history,” reports Kevin Barth. The new champions have “perhaps caught up a bit”, but are still structurally a world behind Salzburg.

How could the team from the Styrian capital still become champions? The club laid the foundation stone during the challenging Corona phase. Christian Ilzer, the master coach, moved from Austria Vienna to Sturm in the summer of 2020. “The club agreed on a game system that summer that has since been played in the youth teams. Very high, very energetic pressing that puts the opponent under constant stress,” says Barth.

Title without a scorer

In the following years, Ilzer managed to develop players individually. However, the people of Graz do not have the one outstanding player in their ranks. This is also clear when looking at the top scorers list. No player has scored in double figures, Georgian Otar Kiteishvili is the best scorer with nine goals. Sturm became champions without having a goalscorer in their ranks. You have to do that first.

But the homogeneous squad made us forget about the lack of a goal machine. The young Austrian Alexander Prass is convincing in the left midfield. Experienced captain Jon Gorenc Stankovic pulls the strings in front of the defense. His Slovenian compatriot Tomi Horvat is having a great season. In defense, David Affengruber has caught the attention of interested parties Borussia Mönchengladbach and Austria’s national coach Ralf Rangnick.

Sports director Andreas Schicker, who is currently associated with TSG Hoffenheim, is responsible for the squad composition. The 37-year-old took up his position in the summer of 2020, just like coach Ilzer. And he promptly made the right decisions in the transfer market. Schicker signed the Dane Rasmus Højlund from Copenhagen in January 2022, but sold the accurate striker to Bergamo just six months later – for Graz’s record fee of 17 million euros. Today Højlund is a regular player at Manchester United, and Graz used the transfer money to buy the last pieces of the mosaic for the championship team. “Sturm has a great scouting system, there is often talk of a shadow squad. That means that if Sturm has to let a player go, Schicker has long had a new player in his pocket as a plan B,” says fan and expert Barth.

The Ilzer/Schicker era was destined for success, as was already apparent in the first season under the duo’s leadership. Sturm Graz pushed their way to third place in the Bundesliga, in the 21/22 season they even achieved runner-up and cup victory, and this year they achieved a double.

“No crazy things”

What else is to come? For example the Champions League. After 24 years, Sturm is returning to the group stage of the premier class. However, the people of Graz cannot celebrate the festive evenings in their home stadium in Graz-Liebenau. Because the Merkur Arena (formerly Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium) does not meet UEFA requirements, Sturm has to move to Klagenfurt. But the people of Graz have good memories of the Wörthersee Stadium; in the last six years they have won the cup final here three times.

Can the Champions League catapult the Styrians into new spheres? Financially definitely, emphasizes sports director Schicker “Laola 1”“I would be lying if I said that this doesn’t change anything.” But it’s about not doing “crazy things.” A mixture of “continuity” and “courage to change” made the club champions, says Schicker. Sturm Graz wants to continue on this path.

“Sturm Graz has only spent more than two million euros on eight players in its history. The principle applies: get players who are capable of development and sell them on. All of this is more similar to a club like Heidenheim and not Leverkusen,” notes Barth.