If some of the shocking results in the ongoing 2022 World Cup are anything to go by, football is continuing to show that it has no stereotypes and that the Beautiful Game is growing across the globe.
Even in Europe, all the nations are starting to make huge strides both at national team and club level, and results in the UEFA competitions are a demonstration of all this development.
As football continues its evolution, whether latest tactical trends or science and technology, it’s not just the mainstream clubs that continue to take centre stage with their successful results.
There are also other European outfits, who despite not sitting on the podium in elite competitions such as the Champions League or Europa League, are also garnering attention from world football.
One of these clubs is Red Bull Salzburg, 16-time Austria champions who have been one of the brightest teams to watch in this season’s Champions League.
Coached by a meticulous tactician, Matthias Jaissle, Salzburg are topping the Austrian Bundesliga with 39 points after 16 games, six clear of second-placed Sturm Graz.
They are also one of the quarter-finalists in the Austrian Cup and have a daunting task against Serie A side Roma awaiting them in the Europa League.
“We are on track for all our objectives,” Jaissle said when summarising Salzburg’s first part of the season in an interview with the Times of Malta.
A former Hoffenheim player, Jaissle’s playing career was stopped abruptly due to numerous injuries at the age of 26 and three years later he was already an assistant coach at Denmark’s Brondby.
At the age of 32, he landed the Red Bull Salzburg job after working also at RB Leipzig and Liefering – Salzburg’s sister club.
Jaissle’s side produced commanding showings in their Champions League group stage games against the likes of Chelsea and Milan.
The Austrian representatives chalked up six points including a victory against Croatia’s Dinamo Zagreb and two draws against Chelsea and Milan respectively.
Asked about what made Salzburg competitive in this tournament, Jaissle heaped praise on his team’s compactness and belief in the philosophy they follow.
“We have a clear DNA and we showed that with the young players that we have we can compete against anyone,” he said.
“We attacked our opponents, we were brave enough to apply our high-pressing system and the fact that the players believe in this system it just makes us stronger.
“Even against Milan, where we lost 4-0, we managed to produce a very good performance.”
Coach Jaissle caught the eye with his Salzburg side thanks to their high-octane 4-4-2 system with speed and positional play distinguishing them from other teams.
Although Salzburg are part of the Red Bull family, which includes Germany’s RB Leipzig, New York Red Bull, of Major League Soccer, and Brazilian’s Red Bull Bragantino, Jaissle explained how he is free to leave his own blueprint on the team that he is managing.
“Before signing, the club gave me that reassurance which means that I am free to adjust and play to my strengths with the players that I have,” Jaissle pointed out.
“We added some principles to our style of play and so far, it is paying dividends.”
Jaissle, a former German Bundesliga player himself, does not feel any extra pressure to deliver results on big stages like Champions League while nurturing players to reach the heights of the likes of Erling Haaland and Dominik Szoboszlai.
“We know about this pressure and we are on the right path now, making this challenge even more intriguing for us.”
Another challenge that has now become part and parcel with the game of football is how coaches make use of the influx of data and statistics by which they are being constantly bombarded.
Given his young age, 34, Jaissle is familiar with the numbers and figures that are thrown at him. but he remains wary about their usage at Salzburg.
“Data and statistics are increasing in an unbelievable manner in the game football,” he explained.
“We have to be cautious and wary of what to share with our players because you would not want to overload them with a lot of irrelevant information.
“At Salzburg, we have a brilliant analytic team that gives us a lot of information and we make sure to complement our videos with those statistics, to provide context to our players.”
Salzburg spent four days in Malta for a short winter training camp to close their first part of the season, with an eye of what’s next in the business end of the 2022-23 campaign.
Among the aspects which they needed to polish, Jaissle said that they made sure to work on their attacking phase against low-block teams as this is a situation that they encounter a lot in their native championship.
For this camp, Salzburg were without four players who travelled with their national teams in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – Philipp Kohn and Noah Okafor of Switzerland, Strahinja Pavlovic of Serbia and Croatia’s Luka Sucic.
Salzburg in Doha
Pavlovic, who plays as a defender, also managed to put his name on the score sheet for Serbia in their topsy-turvy 3-3 draw against African side Cameroon.
“We are happy and proud to have players from our club representing their national team at the World Cup – it gives me goosebumps because this is a great thing for a club like Salzburg,” Jaissle said.
Taking a quick look at what happened in this tournament so far, one of the aspects that struck the German coach was the progress of teams like Saudi Arabia and Japan.
“The gap between nations continues to reduce itself because these countries are being open-minded about their development – we will see in future championships which countries continue to make huge strides forward in their growth.”
