Austria embarrasses Haaland's Norwegian squad
After a rocky start with a 1:2 loss in the first leg, Ralf Rangnick's Austria squad turned things around in the Nations League, dismantling Norway with a 5:1 victory in the return leg in Linz. Superstar Erling Haaland, who scored the winning goal in the initial match, struggled to make an impact in this one.
Austria had a taste of revenge in style. Ralf Rangnick's team took advantage of a poor performance from Haaland, with Marko Arnautovic scoring two goals to dominate the game. The first goal came early, assisted by Leipzig's Christoph Baumgartner, while the second was a penalty conversion following a foul on Baumgartner.
The home crowd in Linz was treated to more goals after the break. Philipp Lienhart and Stefan Posch both scored headers to increase Austria's lead, and Michael Gregoritsch added another late in the game. Haaland, who started his international career in Austria with Red Bull Salzburg in 2019, had a disappointing night, failing to add to his impressive record of breaking the 87-year-old Norwegian national team goal record in their previous match.
Rangnick was full of praise for his team's performance. He said, "The goal was a bit unfortunate at that time, but the team's reaction was incredible. What I really liked was that we didn't give up. That's how I want it to be. We played like we have in many good games, and today, it was especially against an extremely strong opponent. Scoring three headers against the world's biggest team isn't an easy feat."
Ralf Rangnick's team capitalized on Haaland's off-night, with Marko Arnautovic earning the 'Rank nick' of top scorer with two goals. Despite Haaland's struggles, he had previously claimed the nickname of 'Nations League's destroyer' in Austria with his impressive goal-scoring form.
