Austria recently announced their squad for the 2020 European Championship and goalkeeper Heinz Lindner and striker Adrian Grbic have failed to make the cut.
Though both of them had been included in the preliminary team, they ended up being dropped from the 26-player contingent for Euro 2020 which was announced by head coach Franco Foda on May 24. He also revealed that they will be beginning preparation soon.
“The coaching staff decided to start the preparation with 26 players. It was a difficult decision, especially from a human perspective,” Foda said.
With 28 caps to his name, Lindner was the most experienced of the four goalkeepers in the preliminary list of players. Since Robert Almer’s retirement in 2016, the FC Basel keeper was coach Franco Foda’s first-choice in goal for two years before he ended up losing his spot to Alexander Schlager of LASK and Pavao Pervan of German club Wolfsburg.
Adrian Grbic, on the other hand, earned his first national cap last year and the striker had been in red-hot form, scoring four times in the first seven matches of his international career. He also scored crucial and decisive goals for Austria, including the late winner in a 2-1 win against Northern Ireland and an equalizer in stoppage time against Norway in the Nations League last November.
Bayern Munich’s David Alaba, who is looking for a new club this summer and is rumoured to be moving to Real Madrid, will lead the squad in Euro 2020. With 79 appearances and a brilliant career in Germany with Bayern Munich, 28-year-old David Alaba is the most high-profile footballer in the Austria squad.
21 players in the Austrian squad ply their trade in the Bundesliga while only LASK’s Schlager and RB Salzburg’s Andreas Ulmer play in the Austrian domestic league.
The squad will begin preparations in Bad Tatzmannsdorf from Friday. Austria begin their Euro 2020 campaign against North Macedonia in Bucharest on June 13.
Squad:
Goalkeepers: Daniel Bachmann (Watford), Pavao Pervan (Wolfsburg), Alexander Schlager (LASK)
Defenders: David Alaba (Bayern Munich), Aleksandar Dragovic (Leverkusen), Marco Friedl (Werder Bremen), Martin Hinteregger (Eintracht Frankfurt), Stefan Lainer (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Philipp Lienhart (Freiburg), Stefan Posch (Hoffenheim), Christopher Trimmel (Union Berlin), Andreas Ulmer (Salzburg)
Midfielders: Julian Baumgartlinger (Leverkusen), Christoph Baumgartner (Hoffenheim), Florian Grillitsch (Hoffenheim), Stefan Ilsanker (Eintracht Frankfurt), Konrad Laimer (Leipzig), Valentino Lazaro (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Marcel Sabitzer (Leipzig), Louis Schaub (Luzern), Xaver Schlager (Wolfsburg), Alessandro Schöpf (Schalke)
Forwards: Marko Arnautovic (Shanghai), Michael Gregoritsch (Augsburg), Sasa Kalajdzic (Stuttgart), Karim Onisiwo (Mainz)
