We are at the dawn of a new era! Pepijn Lijnders, former assistant coach of Liverpool, is taking the reigns as our new head coach. With fresh ideas and an impressive track record in coaching to date, the 41-year-old Dutchman - who helped the Reds to the UEFA Champions League title in 2018/19 as well as the 2019/20 Premier League title - is joining our Red Bulls.
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Preparing for an extra-long season
After performance testing this weekend, training is to start on Monday 24 June at 10:30 CEST at the Taxham training centre. In PUMA kit for the first time and under Lijnders, our boys will start their preparations for an extremely long and intensive season. In addition to the ADMIRAL Bundesliga and UNIQA ÖFB Cup, we are to face eight matches in the new-look group stage of the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League (instead of the previous six). Two of these matches will be contested in January, which is typically part of the winter break in Austria.
The 2024/25 season will then conclude with the newly designed FIFA Club World Cup in USA (15 June to 13 July 2025), in which we will be one of 32 clubs from around the world taking part.
There is a lot of new ground for us, but we will work very hard towards it all.
Our sporting director Bernhard Seonbuchner says on the situation: "The plans for next season are very complicated and comprehensive due to the demands of the calendar and the Club World Cup. We need to consider very carefully when we are using time to prepare and recover, as well as what kind of squad size we need for next season. There is a lot of new ground for us, but we will work very hard towards it all."
Changes in coaching team
In addition to our new head coach, other changes have been made in our support staff. In Onur Cinel (FC Liefering) and Vitor Matos (Liverpool), we have two new assistant coaches (replacing Florens Koch, who is becoming head coach of the U18 Academy team as well as Alexander Hauser, who will take on a new challenge).
Further changes are being made to our goalkeeper coaching, with 38-year-old Portuguese coach Pedro Felipe da Silva Pereira (most recently a goalkeeper coach at Al-Sadd in Qatar) taking on the role together with our former goalie Eddie Gustafsson, who is joining us from the Red Bull Football Academy. Their predecessor Herbert Ilsanker will work in scouting for us in future, while Sebastian Baumgartner's future remains open.
The athletics training will be led by Andreas Kornmayer (from Liverpool) together with Sebastian Kirchner (who has been with the Red Bulls since 2019).
Our analysis team is recruiting Christoph Kappel, who is also taking the next step from the Red Bull Football Academy.
Loan and co-operation players, Euro stars and comebacks
Pep Lijnders is to have a big squad at his disposal for his first session. Only absent are the Euro stars Flavius Daniliuc (Austria), Strahinja Pavlovic, Petar Ratkov (both Serbia) and Luka Sucic (Croatia). You can read how they are getting on in our EURO 2024 live blog.
Alexander Schlager, who had to pull out of the Austria squad due to injury, is currently working towards his comeback, as are Fernando and Leo Morgalla.
Back with us are several loan players - Ignace Van der Brempt (SV Hamburg), Dijon Kameri (Grashoppers Zürich) and Kamil Piatkowski (Granada CF). Other loan players still have their future to be determined - Lukas Ibertsberger (WAC), Kilian Ludewig (1860 Munich), Mamadou Sangare (TSV Hartberg), Samson Tijani (WAC) and Lucho Vasquez (Kapfenberg).
The FC Liefering youngsters of Adam Daghim, Salko Hamzic, Raphael Hofer (currently injured), Bryan Okoh, Lukas Wallner and Moussa Yeo are set to train with our Red Bulls too.
Five weeks of pre-season, five friendly matches
The pre-season will last around five weeks until the first competitive match of the season in the UNIQA ÖFB Cup on the last weekend of July, with five friendly matches (including against the Czech champions and Croatian runners-up) as well as a training camp in Saalfelden on the schedule.
Training camp, friendly matches & more - our plan for summer 2024
- 22 June: Performance tests
- 24 June: First training session in Taxham
- 29 June, 17:00 CEST: Friendly match v Unterhaching in Anif
- 6 July, 15:00 CEST: Friendly match v SV Kuchl in Kuchl
- 6 to 17 July: Training camp in Saalfelden
- 13 July, 15:30 CEST: Friendly match v Sparta Prague in St. Johann/Tirol
- 17 July, 18:00 CEST: Friendly match vs. HNK Rijeka in Anif
- 20 July: Friendly match (opponents TBD)
- 22 July: UEFA Champions League third qualifying round draw
- 26 - 28 July: UNIQA ÖFB Cup first round
- 2- 4 August: ADMIRAL Bundesliga 2024/25 first matchday
- 6-7 August: UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, first leg
- 10 - 11 August: ADMIRAL Bundesliga 2024/25 second matchday
- 13 August: UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, second leg
