"He has proven it"

Gregoritsch: Special praise for Sabitzer after 5:1 gala

Michael Gregoritsch and his team-mates celebrated a resounding victory against Norway.(Bild: Mario Urbantschitsch)

The ÖFB team put themselves in an excellent position in the battle to regain promotion to the top division of the Nations League with a 5:1 win against Norway. Michael Gregoritsch gave special praise to team-mate Marcel Sabitzer.

The first home win over Norway since 1979 - a 4-0 victory back then - had many match winners. One of them yesterday was Philipp Lienhart, who scored with his head from a Romano Schmid corner, as he did on Thursday in the 4-0 win over Kazakhstan: "Standards are important, they can decide games like today," laughed the central defender. "As against Kazakhstan, we were very present in the tackles, had a lot of energy on the pitch and gave 100% on the pitch. It showed once again: If we perform like this, we can beat any opponent."

Norway suffered their worst defeat since 2017 - the 6-0 loss to Germany - partly because Michael Gregoritsch scored: "We've often read that there are problems in our attack. If we carry on like this, we won't read that much anymore," laughed the striker.

Marcel Sabitzer(Bild: Mario Urbantschitsch)

Who had special praise for Marcel Sabitzer: "Sabi is certainly one of our most important players and proved once again in both matches that he can score."

According to Gregoritsch, the scoring feast was also thanks to the team boss: "Ralf Rangnick really pushed us this week, appealing to us to bring more power onto the pitch. Because that's exactly what can cause a lot of teams a lot of problems."