Klausner and Scherer

Two new faces on the touchline

Florian Klausner has already played his first competitive match with FC Pinzgau.(Bild: Andreas Tröster)

Two western league clubs start the season with different coaches.FC Pinzgau's Florian Klausner shuttles back and forth between Carinthia and Saalfelden, while St. Johann's Andreas Scherer takes over from veteran Ernst Lottermoser.

Two more sleeps before the new season of the Regionalliga West begins. The season kicks off with a Salzburg derby: FC Pinzgau host St. Johann on Friday (19). Florian Klausner and Andreas Scherer, two new faces who are now setting the pace for the western league team, will face each other.

Saalfelden coach Klausner has already been around a lot in his career. From Wacker Innsbruck to Fortuna Düsseldorf, the Red Bull Academy, Nuremberg and the Liechtenstein national team, he returned to Austria. "At some point, I wanted to be a part of my son's life (aged eleven, please note)," explains the 42-year-old. Love led the Tyrolean native to settle down in the Carinthian town of Seeboden, where he now commutes around one and a half hours to Saalfelden. From September, the sports science graduate will be working as a teacher at a sports high school: "That works out well time-wise."

Florian Klausner met Cristiano Ronaldo at a match between Liechtenstein and Portugal.(Bild: zVg)

In his previous positions, he was an athletics coach: "You can always be clever in the background, now I have to take the lead." The new head coach wants to repeat the previous season (fourth place).

Successor is a companion
However, St. Johann would like to avoid a repeat of the previous season. After all, they were in a relegation battle for a long time. The legacy that new boss Scherer is taking on is a big one. After all, Werfenwenger succeeds legendary coach Ernst Lottermoser. Werfenwenger is confident that he will succeed. After all, the two have known each other for many years. The parallels cannot be denied. Both grew up at Pfarrwerfen. Lottermoser was Scherer's coach there. He then brought him to LAZ Bischofshofen and later joined the club as "co".

Looking forward to derbies
"Back then, I saw an opportunity to become head coach here at some point. I was delighted when I was asked," says the 30-year-old, who works as a freelance personal trainer.

Not much is set to change under him. "We're going to keep things the same and integrate new things," emphasizes Scherer, who is particularly looking forward to the derbies in the 2024/25 season. He only has to sleep twice before the first local duel.