Austrian ego

Football and ice hockey are two fundamentally different sports. Well, according to the Wiener Stadthalle ice hockey can be played on a watery ground too, but that's an exception from normality. On Saturday our national team was able to keep eyes on the same level with former world champions Russia, so everybody was happy and satisfied. "We're not the same team anymore we used to be in former times", some experts expressed their opinions about this "success" (in fact we did lose the game, nothing else). Two days later the small brother and former part of Russia - Belarus - was the second opponent of the "self-confidence bubbling" Austrians. "Belarus is much worse than Russia, we have to win this game if we do not want to be relegated to the lower play-off", some experts and even players said to the media this time. Unfortunately they lost the game 0-5 (some kinda clear win for Belarus) and were the 2nd best team on the ice (or water, if you want so), nothing more or less. "This team has to learn many things, it's not a world class team yet", was the general tenor this time. "We are only Austria, how can a team like Austria beat strong ice hockey nations like Russia or Belarus, that's impossible". Okay...

Same thing about football. Do you know Hans K. (picture shown below)? A former European class forward who scored more goals than any other Austrian player in these times. Right now he's the coach of the national team, and nobody knows why. He has not had any successes yet, failed to qualify to the EM in Portugal last year and will fail in qualifying for the WM in our neighbour country Germany next year. Can you remember the game in Northern Ireland? No? Well, here's a short reminder:

That means that we naturally _cannot_ qualify for a big event like the WM. I wonder why we had been able to qualify for the world championships in 1990 and 1998. Maybe it was a mistake by some officials, or our players unintentionally scored too many goals. Before the two matches against Wales, we had been the worst team in Europe, according to the media and the publicity. After those two games (and six points) we suddenly _can_ qualify ourselves for the WM? Have I missed out or ignored anything important? Or is it just the nature of the Austrian soul?

Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrübt. It seems that we cannot avoid these recurring loops. But it would not be any fun anymore, wouldn't it? Sincerly yours, mp, inhapident of the football world champion nation 2010.