Interview with high-flyers
Also this year Austria Wien will not play a decisive role in the Austrian championship race. In fact, the 24-time Austrian champion has made it his mission to become a stepping stone for young talent. In addition to midfielder Matthias Braunöder, Dominik Fitz is clearly one of the winners of the season so far. At Transfermarkt, the 23-year-old talks about his many setbacks and hope for an injury-free future and a possible move to the German Bundesliga.
Herbert Prohaska is considered one of the greatest players in Austrian football history. In 2004, the 83-time ÖFB team player was voted the footballer of the century. During his active career, the playmaker was Italian champion with AS Roma and cup winner with Inter Milan. But he celebrated his greatest successes in the dress of Austria Wien. He was national champion seven times with the Violette and four times he won the Austrian Cup. Accordingly, each of his successors at Austria had a burden to bear, even though a comparison with the honorary captain seemed impossible. In the meantime, Austria has a classic “ten” in their ranks again in Fitz, who has attracted the attention of the entire league.
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With six goals and six assists, the 23-year-old is one of the top performers in the team. But to describe him as a shooting star would not be taken into account in the course of his career, because the Viennese native is everything but a shooting star. At the age of 18 he made his debut under Thomas Letsch, who is now Bochum coach, but the joy didn’t last long after he had to pause for several months due to a torn muscle fiber and bone edema. A serious injury is not easy to take, especially for a talent, as Fitz explains: “As a young player you are not very good at assessing the severity of an injury and you do not anticipate that you could get injured during a game or a session. When it came to bone edema, I thought I’d be back in two weeks. In the end it was a good three months. It was a tough time for me because I was well on my way to fighting for a place in the first team.”
In the 2019/20 season, the 20-year-old really got off to a flying start. In 25 games he scored four goals and eight assists. Because of his performance, foreign clubs queued up until Fitz tore his syndesmosis ligament in the league game against Admira Mödling. In the same game, Fitz still had the 1-0 lead. “The injury wasn’t the worst, it was more the questions that popped up in my head: How long will it be before I can come back? Will I ever reach the same level of performance again? In such situations you have to be careful not to get into a negative vortex. I am extremely happy that my family supported me. I am also grateful that the physios in rehab put up with me for so long. I was often in a bad mood because I missed working with the ball. At first, I just complained almost every day,” says the 23-year-old with a laugh.
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But the time in rehab also made Fitz a different person. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s gratitude. It was during my injury that I really realized what a privilege, how lucky we actually are as footballers. This injury was like food for thought for me. That’s why I value every minute of the game more today than I did a few years ago,” said the FAK player. After returning to the court, it took some time for Fitz to regain his former strength.
The playmaker went into the past season with great expectations and wanted to attract international clubs’ attention again. But in terms of sport, little came together for the midfielder, who even lost the regular place that was actually believed to be safe. Nevertheless, Fitz didn’t let himself down and decided to make the unusual step to the second team. Here he played himself back into focus. “I’m not a player who reacts defiantly when he doesn’t play, I look for solutions. And my solution was to get game practice with the second team. I wasn’t too bad about it, quite the opposite. I needed game minutes and I didn’t care where or how I got them. Not being involved in those games was out of the question for me, especially as I saw the younger players look up to me and it was my bloody duty to be a role model. I also think it’s important when you go down to second as a professional to be there for the boys and give help and advice because each of us has been in a situation like that where you’ve benefited from the experience of the older ones.” , stresses Fitz.
Austria Vienna: Fitz about his discrepancies with ex-coach Manfred Schmid
But even after returning to the first team, the story of Fitz’s football career was repeating itself. In early February, he underwent routine ankle surgery to remove plates. Fitz suffered severe burns on his instep due to a short circuit on the warming device. Fitz used this year’s summer break as a period of reflection and made many adjustments. “I really asked myself, where am I now, where do I want to go and how can I do it. When I analyzed it, I noticed a few things. So it was clear to me: I have to show a different body language and I have to work more on my self-confidence. In addition, I took less vacation and put in extra shifts. On the very first day of preparation, I sat down with Manfred Schmid (former head coach; ed.) and we sorted out our discrepancies from the past. That helped me tremendously to make the new start I mentioned. Today I’m extremely happy that I get his trust,” says the former U21 international. (Editor’s note: the interview was taped before Schmid was fired.)
In particular, his dribbling skills, his dangerous standard situations, but his clean technique paired with ease characterize Fitz’s style of play. This season, with eight goals and seven assists in 26 games, he has consistently performed well and was one of the biggest winners in the most recent market value update in Austria with an increase from 1.2 to 2 million euros.
He does not see himself at the end of his development for a long time. “It’s important to have confidence in your own abilities, but persistence is even more important. Actually, the processes are the same: practice, make mistakes, analyze, practice, make mistakes. At some point the word error disappears and success sets in. Routines are established and it is as easy as a feather to solve one-on-one situations, for example. If you look at Arjen Robben: he always did the same thing, but with perfection and with a world-class manner, that was incredible. On his way there, he certainly failed a few times and still he didn’t give up. And that’s why he’s kind of a role model,” Fitz emphasizes.
Off the pitch, the 23-year-old, who has played for the Violets since he was young, is also characterized by straightforwardness. He says what he thinks without necessarily having to please and so he hopes that more players will be authentic on and off the pitch in the future. “I’m the type of guy who always says what’s on his mind and doesn’t say what everyone wants to hear. I think it’s important to remain authentic in interviews or in conversations with the fans and not to pretend. I can understand that there are players who like to use empty phrases because they feel more comfortable with it. I prefer to try to get by without empty phrases,” says the 23-year-old.
While the season so far has been successful for Fitz personally, it has been rather mixed for the Violets. The FAK is currently in seventh place in the table. In addition, the club had to bow out in the group stage of the UEFA Europa Conference League. But the midfielder believes in a successful future: “Perhaps the results are not yet what you would like, but I can see that things are growing together. We really do have a brilliant group. Especially on a human level it fits, we do a lot together in our free time. And even when we won the derby you could see that we have a strong team spirit. The players who sat on the bench weren’t defiant, but pushed those who were on the pitch. We lost the duels in the Conference League mainly because of the lack of experience and naivety in the respective final phases. I’m 100 percent convinced that if we played internationally again next season, that wouldn’t happen to us again.”
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For Fitz, the FAK isn’t just any club, it’s his club. Despite being only 23 years old, he has already played over 100 games for Austria and has already taken on the role of leading player. He accepts this calmly and without pressure. “I don’t let the pressure get to me. I always tell myself I’m not on the field to think, I’m on the field to play football. I think the word leader is a little too much. The only thing I want is to help my teammates on the pitch, no matter the situation. It is well known that I identify with this club. Austria is just my club – and a damn awesome one at that. If you’ve been playing for the same club since you were young, then you automatically realize what makes that club special and you want to give back your part in supporting the fans,” emphasizes Fitz.
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The contract from the native of Vienna runs until 2026 and if he fulfills it, he would become an Austria legend, but there is also speculation about a possible transfer to the German Bundesliga. “Of course a move to Germany would be attractive, after all I follow the German Bundesliga closely. Still, I don’t want to break anything over my knee. I know what I have at Austria and it would be cool to have the status of an Austria legend at some point. But maybe we can manage both ways,” says Fitz with a laugh.
Interview by Henrik Stadnischeko
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