International football match Faroe Islands - Austria 1990
The soccer match Faroe Islands against Austria in 1990 took place on September 12th of 1990 during qualifying for the European Championship in 1992 between the men's national teams of the two countries in Sweden's Landskrona instead. It was the first competitive game of the Faroese national football team , which sensationally won the game 1-0.
The goalscorer Torkil Nielsen and the goalkeeper Jens Martin Knudsen were considered the outstanding players on the Faroe Islands side. The ÖFB, however, subsequently failed to qualify for the European Championship. Team boss Josef Hickersberger announced his resignation the next day.
prehistory
The Faroe Islands had been a member of FIFA since 1988 and UEFA since 1990 . The game against Austria was part of the qualification for the European Championship 1992 and thus the first competitive game of the Faroe Islands. Previously, only four friendlies, two each against Iceland and Canada, were played.
According to the then President of the Faroe Islands Football Association (FSF) Torleif Sigurðsson , the Faroese football clubs were initially against participation for financial and sporting reasons. Experts abroad emphasized that participation was important, especially since in the political situation at the time it was foreseeable that new Eastern European national teams would emerge and that participation by the Faroe Islands would set a precedent for them to be accepted into UEFA and FIFA. Added to this was the great interest shown by the players in the Faroese national team. The financial questions were solved by sponsors, so in times of the great economic crisis in the Faroe Islands the public purse was not burdened. National coach Páll Guðlaugsson also said:
"If we hadn't seized the chance now, yes, it might never have come again ... If the man were allowed to vote on the street, we would hardly ever achieve anything."
After FSF President Sigurðsson had rejected an offer made by the Hamburg-Altona district office at the suggestion of the Altonaer Freiheit initiative to host the home games in the Volksparkstadion or on the Adolf-Jäger-Kampfbahn in view of the shared Danish history , the game took place in Sweden, because back then there were only artificial turf pitches in the Faroe Islands .
A high Austrian victory was generally expected. Toni Polster spoke of a 10-0 win before the game, and the Faroese were also expecting a devastating defeat. In Jens Martin Knudsen's opinion, a 0: 5 would have been a “brilliant result”.
The game
Constellations
| Faroe Islands | Austria | |||||||
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Jens Martin Knudsen - Julian Hansen , Mikkjal Danielsen , Jóannes Jakobsen , Tummas Eli Hansen - Allan Mørkøre , Ábraham Hansen , Kári Reynheim , Jan Dam , Torkil Nielsen - Kurt Mørkøre Trainer: Páll Guðlaugsson |
Michael Konsel - Robert Pecl , Michael Streiter , Jürgen Hartmann - Kurt Russ , Heinz Peischl , Manfred Linzmaier , Andreas Herzog (62nd Peter Pacult ) - Gerhard Rodax , Toni Polster , Andreas Reisinger (62nd Gerald Willfurth ) Trainer: Josef Hickersberger |
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 1-0 Torkil Nielsen (62nd)
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 Allan Mørkøre
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Michael Streiter
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The Faroese players were amateurs, with the exception of team captain Jóannes Jakobsen , who was the coach of his club VB Vágur , while the Austrian professionals took part in the World Cup in Italy that same year .
Course of the game
In the Landskrona stadium (max. 12-14,000 spectators) there were 1265 spectators, including around 50 Faroese , many of them residing in Denmark. About 100 journalists were present. The game was broadcast live on ORF and Eurosport had the rights to broadcast it later. It was the event with the greatest international attention to date for the Faroe Islands.
Shortly before the game kicked off, the transmission line of the Faroese radio ( Útvarp Føroya ) collapsed. The two Faroese football reporters Jógvan Arge and his brother Magni Arge reported by phone during the first half.
At break it was 0-0. In the 62nd minute, the decisive goal fell by Torkil Nielsen, who played around three defenders and shot the ball hard and flat with his left foot in the middle of the goal from about 16 meters away.
Reactions in the Faroe Islands
The winning team was greeted by around 20,000 people on their arrival from Landskrona, around half of the population. According to Jens Martin Knudsen, the team only then became aware of what they had achieved.
The players, especially Knudsen and Nielsen, have been considered national heroes ever since.
Last but not least, there is a hymn to the game, the song Reytt og blátt og hvítt ("Red and blue and white" based on the Faroese national colors). It starts with the mocking words "The Faroe Islands gave Austria a waltz that was heard from Vienna to Mikladalur ..." In the refrain it says:
- Merkið reytt og blátt and hvítt,
- veittrar frítt um heimin vítt.
- Fjøllini, fólkini stolt standa rætt,
- Dávid her feldi Goliat.
- Dávid her feldi Goliat.
- Koyrið á ...
- Koyr á Føroyar ...
In German roughly:
- The flag red and blue and white
- blows freely around the wide world.
- The mountains and the people proudly stand there,
- David overthrew Goliath.
- David overthrew Goliath.
- Forward…
- Forward Faroe Islands ...
Further course of qualification
The game remained the only win for the Faroese team in the qualifying round. On October 10, 1990, they lost 4-1 to Denmark . In the following game on May 1, 1991 against Northern Ireland in Belfast, Kári Reynheim scored 1-1 in the 62nd minute. On May 16 they lost 7-0 to Yugoslavia. The return match against Austria on May 22, 1991 in Salzburg ended 3-0 (2-0) for Austria, it was Austria's only victory in qualifying. The Faroe Islands were followed by a 5-0 draw against Northern Ireland (September 11), a 4-0 win against Denmark (September 25) and a 2-0 draw against Yugoslavia (October 16). Austria finished the qualification level on points with the Faroe Islands, but were second to last due to the better goal difference, while the Faroe Islands took last place. The Yugoslav team actually qualified for the European Championship was excluded due to the Yugoslav wars shortly before the tournament and instead the Danes took part, who surprisingly became European champions for the first time.
Others
In the 2010 World Cup qualification, the Faroe Islands and Austria played against each other again, this time in Tórshavn (October 11, 2008). Again Austria could not win, the game ended 1: 1. The second leg on September 5, 2009 ended 1: 3 (0: 2) from the Faroese perspective.
Almost twenty years after the Austrian 0-1 defeat, the same was repeated at club level. In the second leg of the second qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League the defeated FC Red Bull Salzburg 20 July 2010 HB Tórshavn in Gundadalur stadium in Torshavn 223 spectators also with 0: 1st However, Salzburg got on anyway, as they had already won the first leg 5-0.
literature
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Finnur Helmsdal : Reytt og blátt and hvítt - Føroyar and EM-kappingin . Tórshavn 1991 (no ISBN, in Faroese, 192 p. - The book is provided with many photos and not only describes all the Faroe Islands' EURO qualifiers in 1990/91, but also offers many background reports on the qualifying round, from the history of Faroese football, statistics, Biographies, guest comments.)
- English edition: Red, blue and white. The Faroes and the European championships , 1992
- Philipp Köster : Football miracle. When football becomes incredible . Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-203-85603-4 (153 pages with 26 “football wonders” from history, including the game Faroe Islands-Austria)
- Fritz Neumann et al .: Games that made history . egoth, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-902480-16-5 (236 pages with 22 historical football games, including the one mentioned here)
Web links
- Austriasoccer.at (team line-up)
- Footballsupporters.fo ("Jógvan Arge, world's best football reporter")
Individual evidence
- ↑ see, for example, articles in the daily newspaper of March 2, 1990, the Deutsche Volkszeitung of March 22, 1990 and Flensborg Avis of July 11, 1992
- ^ Faroe Islands - Austria 1-1 , spox.com
- ↑ kleinezeitung.at: Constantini's four-meter storm was a complete success ( memento from October 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Kleine Zeitung September 5, 2009
- ^ Diepresse.com: Red Bull Salzburg embarrassed itself on the Faroe Islands , July 20, 2010. Accessed on September 9, 2012.