Austria and Moldova Danger Men

Austria and Moldova danger men.

By Christian Leggas

In just a few days, John van’t Schip and Greece begin yet another important string of matches. 

A friendly against Austria in Klagenfurt followed by two consecutive home games against Moldova and Kosovo will once again test our Ethniki to see just how much they’ve improved under our relatively new style of management. 

A previous blog of mine has already touched on the particular danger-men that Kosovo possesses, but you might be thinking, who from Austria and Moldova must Greece watch closely in the hope of obtaining satisfactory results? Well, details on those players are as follows.

 

Austria:

Julian Baumgartlinger: If you’ve represented your country seventy-six times across eleven years, and have been a regular captain for four of those years, then you deserve to be held in very high regard. 

Baumgartlinger has been one of the stalwarts of the Austrian National Team for a very long time now, on top of that, he has put together an outstanding record for two of Germany’s experienced top-flight campaigners in Mainz and Bayer Leverkusen. Gathering an impressive total of two-hundred and sixty-one appearances in nearly ten years. 

More recently for his country, he’s completed ninety minutes in defensive midfield in seven of the last ten competitive matches that Austria has played. 

Helping contribute to three clean sheets in that timeframe as well. The likes of Andreas Bouchalakis, Dimitris Kourbelis, and Zeca will need to do their homework on Baumgartlinger, as any one of the three will most likely be faced with the difficult task of finding a way past the Austrian team’s version of a brick wall.

David Alaba: Well, where to even begin with this well-known world-class defender. 

Like Baumgartlinger, nearly ten years of experience playing at the highest level of German football, three-hundred and eighty-nine appearances for German football’s version of Goliath in Bayern Munich and not to mention a collection of individual and team accolades across such an illustrious career that could potentially fill up a standard-sized garage. 

Just like his domestic record, Alaba is entitled to be very proud of his career with the Austrian National Team as well. Putting together a very impressive seventy-two caps in almost ten years. 

Contributing fourteen goals and sixteen assists as well, which I’d argue is unheard of for somebody who is predominately a defender, albeit one that loves to get forward when the opportunity presents itself. Injuries have affected Alaba’s time on the pitch for Austria in the last eighteen-or-so months though, as he’s only played five of Austria’s last twelve competitive matches. 

However, he completed ninety minutes in all five games, so when Alaba is fit to play, he’s a threat for the whole game, no questions asked. 

Those five matches all came at left-midfield, which leads me to think that either Michalis Bakakis or Lazaros Rota will have the responsibility of negating Alaba’s influence on the game as best as they can.

 

Moldova:

Vitalie Damașcan: This man is coming off arguably a breakout campaign in a domestic sense with then-club Fortuna Sittard, netting eight goals from twenty-three matches, as well as one assist. 

His eye-catching performances with the Eredivisie Battlers last season earned him a move to fellow Dutch top-flight team RKC Waalwijk, where so far, he’s scored once from the two games that they have played. 

While his record with the Moldovan National team is not quite as impressive, having scored once as well as one assist from fourteen games. He undoubtedly will still be very high on confidence when you take into account his recent record in Dutch first-tier football. 

Ex-teammate of his in Lazaros Rota will hopefully have some advice for the coaching staff and his fellow Ethniki defenders on how to stop Damașcan.

Nicolae Milinceanu: Like Damașcan, Milinceanu is coming off arguably his best-ever domestic output in a goal-scoring and assists sense in a single season. Last season for Liechtenstein-based club FC Vaduz. 

He managed to put together a total of seven goals and four assists from thirty-four matches, which helped FC Vaduz a lot in their pursuit of promotion to top-flight Swiss football, which they eventually achieved. 

He might only have the one goal from his eleven caps to date, again though, like Damașcan, he’s a player on relatively high confidence that Greece should be putting time into stopping should he see minutes against us.

 

I’ll be very intrigued to see how John van’t Schip plans to deal with not just the players I’ve mentioned in this and my previous blog on Kosovo’s danger-men, but also the rest of the three nations we face in this month.

Hellas Football 

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