Pre-Season Preview: FC Blau Weiss Linz
Written by ad_wilkin on Thursday, 17th Jul 2025 11:21

The first of Town’s pre-season friendlies will come at the end of a training camp in Austria, something that has become commonplace under Kieran McKenna’s tenure.

The opposition will be FC Blau Weiss Linz, an Austrian Bundesliga side who finished sixth last season.

Literally translated to Blue White Football Club, they’re a unique team having only been formed in 1997 in their current guise. The old club, FC Linz, suffered financial troubles and was dissolved via merger into their archrivals LASK Linz, something that would be unthinkable in the English league.

The new side reached the Bundesliga in 2023 having won the second tier, a title they also won in the 2020/21 season but had promotion denied as they didn’t apply for a Bundesliga license.

Their form towards the end of last season was not great having only won one game in the Championship Round (The Austrian Bundesliga is a 12-team league which after the first two rounds of fixtures splits into a top six and a bottom six for the next two rounds)

They’re managed by Austrian Gerald Scheiblehner, who has a 14-year history in management largely in and around the Linz area. He took over Blau Weiss Linz in 2021 meaning that he was the man in charge for their promotion. He’s kept them in the league and built on that last season with the sixth-place finish.

They’re a team who like to press high but were susceptible to last-minute goals last season.

Goalkeepers

Twenty-one-year-old former Manchester United youngster Radek Vitek excelled last season, keeping his team in games with some excellent shot-stopping, making 79 saves in total in only his second season in senior football having spent the previous season on loan at Accrington Stanley.

Vitek also played cup games which left little game time for any of the back-up keepers. Thirty-seven-year-old Andreas Lukse made four starts at the beginning of the season but looks set to retire so the back-up keeper is likely to be a toss-up between two Austrians, 23-year-old Kevin Radulovic and 27-year-old Thomas Turner.

With Vitek returning to Manchester United following the expiry of his loan, Linz have turned to the loan market once again to replace him with 6ft 6in Czech Viktor Baier, who hasn’t played much senior football in his career with just nine appearances for parent club Victoria Plzen.

Having watched him in their pre-season friendlies, he reminds me a bit of Tomasz Holy, very good in the air and a decent shot-stopper but struggles to get to balls down low.

Defenders

At the time of writing, FC Blau Weiss Linz only have three permanent senior central defenders on the books, an area that will need to be strengthened over the summer as manager Scheiblehner prefers to operate with a back three.

Captain Fabio Strauss is one of those. The 30-year-old Austrian has been at the club since 2020 and has made 125 appearances in that time. He struggled with injury last season, missing a large chunk of matches and only made eight starts.

In his absence, it was fellow Austrian Manuel Maranda who filled in. Like Strauss, he’s been around the club for a similar amount of time having joined in 2021 and has chalked up 129 appearances, 32 of which came last season as he became the first name on the teamsheet. He was on target in pre-season with a flicked header against Crvena Zvezda.

Third in that group is Martin Moorman, who was a new signing at the beginning of last season from SK Rapid Wien. Providing the left-footed balance to that back three, he made 22 starts in the left centre-back berth.

The other player who could be included in that unit is 27-year-old Slovakian Alem Pasic, who has split his career between playing centre-back and defensive midfield, something he did to good effect last season with 12 games at centre-back, 10 in defensive midfield and one at right-back in what was his second year with the club.

The other two who featured at centre-back last season were Danilo Mitrovic, who had been with the club since 2020 but has left to join FC Radnicki 1923, and Elias Bakatunda, who could have a bigger part to play this season having joined in January on an 18-month loan from FC Koln.

At right wing-back was 27-year-old Brazilian Anderson, who has spent most of his career in Austria since joining SCR Altach on loan back in 2019.

He was picked-up at the beginning of last season from 2.Liga side SC Austria Lustenau when his contract expired and like Maranda barely missed a game with 30 starts. He managed five assists and scored two goals in those appearances, providing a good attacking threat.

He was backed up by two Austrians, Julian Golles, who has been released, and Marcel Schantl, who will likely once again have to settle for being the back-up having only made four starts last season.

On the other side is 28-year-old Simon Pirkl ,who seems to have found a settled role at left wing-back with 26 assists for the club in 120 appearances.

He struggled a bit last season, however, with only two of the 26 coming in that campaign. His fitness was crucial as Blau Weiss have no other senior options to play in that position.

Twenty-six-year-old Brazilian Joao Luiz, who is more naturally a winger, looks set to be the back-up option there and could see some game time in this one to get him more familiar to that role.

Midfielders

A young midfield pairing of 19-year-old Malian Soumalia Diabate and 22-year-old Alexander Breidl was the most common duo in the centre of the park last season.

Diabate was the more defensive of the pair, making 60 tackles and 50 interceptions, one of the top defensive midfielders in the league with Breidl playing more advanced and spending a lot of his time on the left looking to overload that side.

Current depth in that area is provided by 25-year-old German Oliver Wahling and 23-year-old Brazilian Lucas Dantas, but they only made four starts between them last season.

Diabate was only on loan from RB Salzburg, so it’s likely that Pasic will play further forward in that role for the time being.

Ahead of them, Blau Weiss Linz play with two tens, with match time split across five or six players. With Kristijan Dobras and Conor Noß having been released at the end of the season, that leaves Simon Seidl, Thomas Goiginger and Paul Mensah.

Goiginger was the most impressive of those last season with a high number of successful dribbles resulting in four assists. His season was cut short with injury otherwise he could have had even more.

Seidl is one for the future at just 22 years of age but made 22 starts, contributing to seven goals (four goals and three assists), whilst Mensah also struggled with injuries and was limited to four starts, a vast difference to the previous season where he managed 31 appearances.

With extra depth in that area clearly needed, BW have utilised the free transfer market wisely as Nico Maier has made the switch from Switzerland, where he scored 11 goals for FC Wil 1900 in the Challenge League (Swiss second tier). He’s only 25, a product of the Young Boys academy and will no doubt be relishing the test of challenging himself at a higher level as he slots into one of the number ‘10’ slots.

The free transfer market has also been used to provide more depth in central midfield with Christopher Cvetko signing from the relegated Austria Klagenfurt having made 27 starts and also providing a similar ability to drift out to the left of the pitch that Breidl provides.

Striker

Moving on to Blau Weiss Linz’s main man, the final evolution of Ronaldinho and Rivaldo. Ronivaldo. The 36-year-old Brazilian is peaking late and followed up a ten-goal 2023/24 with a 16-goal haul this time round, which saw him claim the Bundesliga golden boot.

Watching last season’s highlights he’s got a bit of everything about him. Good link-up play, expert poaching instincts to be in the right place at the right time, not afraid to get a shot away with excellent finishing and for someone who is only 5ft 6in tall, he also scored a couple of cracking headers.

His main back-up Alexander Schmidt has also been released and that slot looks to have now been filled by 22-year-old Austrian Muharem Huskovic, who is an Austria Wien player but spent time on loan last season with TSV Hartberg (also in the Austrian Bundesliga) and scored four goals at a frequency of one every 139 minutes as he was largely coming off the bench in that spell.

Also joining is another Austrian, 21-year-old Jakob Knollmuller who scored eight goals in the league below last season and has played behind the striker in pre-season so far.

The Teams

The main point worth noting for this one is that Linz are further ahead in their pre-season preparations. They have played three matches already, losing to Slavia Praha in a rather dull affair before drawing 2-2 with Crvena Zvezda and then facing Town’s sister team Fortuna Dusseldorf, a game that ended in a comfortable 3-1 victory.

They’ve largely started with their better players before replacing some at half-time and some on 60 minutes so it will provide a good test for Town.