Austrian Bundesliga 2019/20: Sturm Graz vs Austria Vienna – tactical analysis

Ahead of this match, Austria Vienna sat in the seventh position with 23 points while Hartberg were with six points in front of them in sixth place. There were only two matchdays remaining and Vienna needed to win this match against Sturm Graz and get three points next week against St. Pölten while Hartberg must lose both of their last games. If that would have happened, Austria Vienna would have been able to get into the important sixth place as after the opening 22 games, the 12 teams of the Austrian Bundesliga get divided into two groups.

On the other side, Sturm Graz were already surely in the championship play-off and were in fifth position. The team of Nestor El Maestro wanted to prove why they are in this decent fifth place.

In this tactical analysis, we’ll especially look at both teams defensive tactics as we saw just a few goalscoring opportunities and also explain the reasons for the two goals as the match ended 1-1.

Lineups

The home team played in their usual 3-5-2 formation with Jörg Siebenhandl between the sticks and the back three in front of him consisted of Lukas Spendlhofer, Anastasios Avlonitis, and Ivan Ljubic. The wings were occupied by Stefan Hierländer and Emanuel Sakic. The central and more defensive midfielder was Juan Domínguez who was supported by Lukas Jäger and Otar Kiteishvili. The two strikers up front were Philipp Huspek and Thorsten Röcher.

On the other side, Christian Ilzer lined his team up in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Patrick Pentz in goal and the four defenders in front of him were Andreas Poulsen, Alexander Borkovic, Maudo Jarjué, and Florian Klein. The defensive midfielders were James Jeggo and Thomas Ebner while the number 10 behind Christoph Monschein was Dominik Fitz. Manprit Sarkaria and Benedikt Pichler were the two wingers.

Austria Vienna’s flexible defensive approach

Before we start the actual tactical analysis, you had to admit that both teams were quite weak during the periods of possession in this game. On the one hand, both teams were extremely flexible and solid in their work against the ball but on the other, you just saw that (especially for Austria Vienna) it was an extremely important game as they had to win and due to that, they seemed a bit nervous.

We’ll now take a look at the periods of possession of Sturm Graz. While on the teamsheet ahead of the match it wasn’t clear how the three central midfielders would be positioned during the build-up in the game, it was until to the last 20 minutes of the match where they made three changes (as we’ll see later in this tactical analysis) clearly to a 3-1-4-2 as the wing-backs pushed forward while Domínguez was the deepest midfielder who supported the back-three during the first phase of the build-up.

Es