"Brutally good"

Veratschnig four-pack in 5:0 U21 test!

Nikolas Veratschnig, Thierno Ballo(Bild: GEPA)

Austria's national under-21 soccer team gained further confidence for the final phase of the European Championship qualifiers in the fall with a 5:0 victory over Scotland! The man of the match in Wr. Neustadt was WAC player Nikolas Veratschnig, who scored four times (21st, 34th, 38th, 66th). The fifth goal was scored by Salzburg's Samson Baidoo (25).

"That feels brutally good," said Veratschnig on ORF. Team boss Werner Gregoritsch was delighted with "a great performance from a team that was thrown together. It all worked out. I'm very happy because we managed to get them to harmonize in just one week (...)."

"It was nice to be part of it!"
Gregoritsch helped seven players make their U21 debut against the Scots. Two of them, full-back Luca Pazourek from Austria Vienna, central defender Benjamin Böckle from Preußen Münster and midfielder Alexander Briedl from Blau-Weiß Linz, were also in the starting eleven. Justin Omoregie, Zeteny Jano, Lukas Reischl, Moritz Oswald and Namory Cisse were also substituted later on.

Thierno Ballo, who had been left out of the final European Championship squad by senior team boss Ralf Rangnick just a few hours earlier, played 81 minutes. The 22-year-old took it sportingly: "It was nice to be part of it."