SC Rheindorf Altach have gone through quite a turbulent spell over the last three years.
Having been promoted to the Austrian Bundesliga in 2014, the side finished third at the first time of asking under Damir Canadi and qualified for the UEFA Europa League which was the club’s debut in European competition.
Unfortunately, Altach didn’t manage to beat Belenenses in the Europa League playoff round and so bowed out of the competition before the group phase, but getting to that stage in the first place was still an amazing feat by Canadi and his players.
By Christmas 2016, the Austrian minnows from Vorarlberg were top of the Bundesliga. Canadi’s incredible work earned him a move to Rapid Wien and so began the team’s downfall.
Altach ended the campaign in fourth, qualifying for the Europa League’s preliminary rounds once again, which doesn’t seem too bad, but the team had the second-worst record in the division in the second half of the season after Canadis mid-season departure.
The team declined further and further and even Canadi returned to the helm for an unsuccessful spell where it was alleged that players conspired behind the legendary Altach coach’s back to change the tactics before a game.
Canadi’s successor Ludovic Magnin guided the team to safety by one point before leaving just a few days later. His replacement was certainly an exciting one, a household name, a rather inexperienced coach, but a World Cup winner.
His name is Miroslav Klose. In fact, Klose is not just a World Cup winner, he is the top goalscorer in the history of the competition and the record scorer for the German national team.
Taking charge of his first side in the men’s game, after spells as the assistant manager with Germany and Bayern Munich, as well as being the head coach of Bayern’s U17s, let’s take a look at the tactics used by the German great in this tactical analysis piece, focusing on the areas of weakness in Rheindorf Altachs setup.
Preferred formations
At the beginning of his tenure, Klose’s preference regarding his formation choice was a 4-2-3-1.
Rheindorf Altach got off to a solid start with this conventional structure, the same formation that Germany used under Hansi Flick during the 2020/21 Bundesliga-winning season in which Klose was the manager’s number two.
It was also the preferred formation of Joachim Low, the former Germany national team boss with whom Klose played under for ten years before moving onto his coaching staff as the assistant manager.
In the opening four games, Altach managed to beat TWL Elektra in the Austria Cup, draw 2-2 with Wolfsberger AC in the league and then beat Austria Wien in the Bundesliga too in what was a magnificent victory for the side.
Unfortunately, it was after this game that results quickly nose-dived as SCR Altach plummeted towards the bottom of the table within a matter of weeks. Now, Klose’s men are sitting third last, four points from Haltberg at the foot of the board.
Klose has been forced to change formation since after numerous failed experiments with his favoured 4-2-3-1. In recent weeks, the 3-4-3 has been the manager’s go-to as well as the 3-5-2 but the team’s shape now depends on the opposition at hand.
The team are really struggling under Klose. The manager has integrated a highly direct style of football, focused around playing long balls to the side’s gargantuan target man Atdhe Nuhiu, winning the second balls, plenty of crosses, and being pragmatic out of possession.
So far, Rheindorf Altach’s pizza plot makes for such terrifying reading that Stephen King and Raymond Chandler couldn’t concoct such a horrific composition.
