Polster to coach amateur team
Toni Polster has been named new manager of an amateur football team competing in the fifth-highest league.
Viennese side SC Wiener Viktoria said today (Weds) that the former goal machine will coach its senior squad next season. The club said the first training session was set to take place on 11 July.
Polster most recently coached the amateur team of ex-Bundesliga club LASK Linz who were relegated last season.
Polster scored 44 goals in 95 appearances for the national team between 1982 and 2000. This makes the 47-year-old the most successful national team striker of the country of all time. He played for Austria Vienna, FC Sevilla and 1. FC Köln (Cologne) among other clubs.
Polster has shown some effort in succeeding in pop music in past years.
Meanwhile, one of his former clubs has announced the signing of one of Austria’s most talented midfielders. Austria Vienna announced Alexander Grünwald will join them from Bundesliga rivals Wiener Neustadt. Keeper Szabolcs Safar left Austria Vienna after seven years to join Wacker Innsbruck who were promoted to the Austrian Bundesliga ahead of last season.
Ex-Austria Vienna star Johannes Aigner left Magna to join LASK. Harald Unverdorben will also play for the Linz-based side next season. The striker most recently played for second-league team SCR Altach.
Emin Sulimani, another Austria Vienna player, decided to join a new club. The midfielder said he will play for promoted FC Admira in the 2011/2012 season. Sulimani will join the team managed by ex-Rapid Vienna player Dietmar Kühbauer from LASK. He will play alongside his brother Benjamin, a prolific scorer who netted 19 goals last season, at the Lower Austrian club which is headed and subsidised by businessman Richard Trenkwalder.
Sport newspapers claim German second-league team 1860 Munich are interested in signing Andreas Lasnik. The Austrian midfielder most recently played for Dutch side Willem II.
Rapid said yesterday they decided to extend the contracts of Norwegian defender Ragnvald Soma and Finnish midfielder Markus Heikkinen by one and two years respectively. The Viennese club recently decided to sell midfielder Yasin Pehlivan to Turkish club Gaziantepspor. Thomas Prager joined Rapid from Swiss team FC Lucerne, while Christian Thonhofer returned from Magna. Former Magna manager and Rapid captain Peter Schöttel will manage Rapid – who finished the last season in a disappointing fifth place – next season.