Football Season Guide

Much like LASK last season, Wacker Innsbruck are a club that returns to the top flight with optimism after winning the second tier after being arguably too big of a club to be playing outside the Bundesliga in the first place. The Innsbruckers have had their fair share of off-field problems in the 21st century and have been unable to really stabilize themselves as a top flight club since being founded in 2002 following the liquidation of Wacker Tirol. Unsurprisingly, given their stature, Wacker have managed to keep hold of the core of their squad during the summer, with the sole player of note to have left being Florian Jamnig, who was tempted away with LASK. Their manager Karl Daxbacher is in his mid 60s and has plenty of experience managing Bundesliga clubs, which is more than can be said of his squad, as Innsbruck not only won promotion with a squad made of players mostly without top flight experience, but also opted to sign no proven top flight players over the summer, instead going for a mix of signings from abroad and the lower leagues. Not a single Erste Liga winner has gone straight down in the current decade and Innsbruck will certainly draw some confidence from that fact. However, their three-point winning margin at the end of the previous season was the lowest second tier winning margin since 2011 and that, combined with the lack of top flight experience of their players, might suggest that Daxbacher's men could face some difficulties in their bid to stay up.