Football Season Guide

Sturm Graz fans will be delighted with the season that their club have had, as the Blackies not only managed to finish second in the league but also won the Austrian Cup title after being Salzburg in the final. The previous season has also left the Grazers with questions of what could have been, as they lead the league until midway through the season, when Franco Foda left to become the new manager of the Austrian national team and was replaced by Heiko Vogel. While guiding Sturm to second in the league and winning the cup, Vogel has not really impressed during his time in charge. A far more defensive manager than Foda, Vogel has made Sturm tougher to beat, but the Grazers tended to struggle in numerous games in which they were favourites. They had their autumn season point tally to fall back on last time around, but starts from scratch now and will need to find a way to unlock defences. This will be made difficult by the fact that they lost Deni Alar, their top scorer in each of the last two seasons, while Bright Edomwonyi, Thorsten Rocher and James Jeggo are among other important players who were tempted away by other clubs. Sturm's transfer policy is normally to sign top players from midtable Bundesliga sides and it is no surprise that the list of arrivals includes the likes of Markus Pink, Lukas Grozurek, Markus Lackner. A familiar face also joins in Anastasios Avlonitis, who signs for his second spell with the club, while a lot will be expected of Philipp Hosiner, a player who scored 0.7 goals per Bundesliga game before leaving Austria Vienna in 2014. The Grazers definitely seem to have replaced quality with quality this summer, but the real concern regarding them is their playing style. They lost the magic they had under Foda in the second half of the previous season and only time will tell if Vogel is the man to take them forward.