Tests against Slovakia and Türkiye
©IMAGO
Ralf Rangnick has nominated his first 2024 squad to prepare for the European Championships in June. Austria will face neighboring Slovakia on March 23rd and there will be a cracker against Turkey in the Happel Stadium on March 26th.
There is a debutant in the 26-man squad: Rapid’s winter signing Christoph Lang was called up for the first time after strong performances in the Bundesliga. The offensive all-rounder has made six appearances for Rapid so far, in which he scored three times. Lang only increased his market value from 1 to 1.8 million euros in the Bundesliga interim update on Monday.
Stefan Lainer, on the other hand, was nominated for a course for the first time since September 2022. The 31-year-old full-back from Mönchengladbach missed the first half of the 2023/24 season due to cancer, but he made his comeback to the German upper house in January.
Compared to the last squad, the injured David Alaba, Sasa Kalajdzic and Manprit Sarkaria were deleted, and the ailing record national player Marko Arnautovic was also not taken into account. Cologne’s offensive man Florian Kainz was also not nominated. In addition to Lainer, England legionnaire Andreas Weimann, Wolfsburg’s Patrick Wimmer, who was injured in the autumn, and local professionals Alexander Prass, Leopold Querfeld and Flavius Daniliuc are back after an absence.
Unsurprisingly, Rangnick chose not to include Rapid players Guido Burgstaller, Marco Grüll and Niklas Hedl in his nomination, despite the latter two’s strong form. All three had fallen into disgrace due to homophobic chants after the derby and were given (partially conditional) bans by the Bundesliga. None of the Hütteldorfers made it onto the call list either.
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