It will soon be three years since Willy Rotensteiner arrived in Israel. At the beginning of his career, the Austrian reached the standard of the professional manager for the Israeli national team and recently went down to the bench for the position of national coach. Since then, he has added to his team quite a few professionals who worked in Austrian football and built around him a foreign hive that is mostly made up of characters he knew, with no fixed salary, so most of them come for short periods and leave.
Today (Tuesday) it was decided that Rupert Marco will be Rotensteiner’s assistant on the team. The two met at the Austrian association, where they led a project to raise the future players of local football in the youth teams. Marco did not come with a large and rich resume as a coach and in fact it can be said that he was one of Rotensteiner’s employees when he coached the young teams up to the age of 19 of Austria in his time.
Rupert Marco was also not a glorious player, but he did make a few isolated appearances in friendly matches for the Austrian national team. In these games, by the way, he collaborated with some of the well-known professionals who worked in Israel, such as goalkeeper Klaus Lindenberger, who became the team’s goalkeeping coach, and Andy Herzog, the star of the Austrian team that previously coached the Israeli team. So you could say he’s part of the clique.
Last summer, Marco’s name is linked to the role of coach at Strum Graz, the team he played and worked for, but he was not appointed to the position in the end. This report in the Austrian media was published towards the end of his term in the Austrian association, where he was employed from 2011 to the end of 2020, when the announcement of his termination officially came out.
Although Rotensteiner wanted to add a new Israeli assistant coach to the team, and even turned to Yossi Benyon and Aliniv Barda to take the job, the team says that in recent weeks he has also conveyed messages to the association that he is interested in a foreign assistant coach. That it ended its way in the Austrian association.
Marco, who can now make a living as an assistant coach on the Israeli national team, even though he does not have a particularly impressive resume, will not work on a full-time contract, but will receive 500 euros for each working day. These are conditions similar to those of the other professionals that Rotensteiner has brought in the past. In other words, an assistant freelance coach.
No less than a dozen foreign team members have come to work for the Football Association since Willy Rotensteiner landed in Israel. Most of them all came from Austrian football, so these are professionals he knew before. Rotensteiner provided employment for everyone on a daily basis, so most of them also came for short periods and left no significant mark on the team. These conditions may be good for association and save money, but in fact, each time they come for a few days, earn thousands of euros and return home.
In addition to head coach Andy Herzog, assistant coach Rupert Marco, and goalkeeping coach Klaus Lindenberger who will continue to work in the blue and white uniform in the upcoming campaign – the Israeli team also had defense coach Martin Sternzel who played for Austria in the past, mental coach Marcus Rogen fleeing from Haaretz Corona and ended his role immediately afterwards, as did Heinz Hochhauser and Gerhard Schweizer who followed as scouts the team’s rivals in Europe for a short time.
In addition to these Austrians, the team also included the German Jan Benjamin Kugel, who came to the position of fitness coach after previously being employed by the German team and the Austrian Salzburg, Polly Petrus Cutters who came as a physiotherapist, and the Italian Dr. Ricardo Proiti All of them speak German and all of them were defined in the association as Rotensteiner’s men, even if they were not Austrians on the identity card.
Some know each other and have even played or worked with each other before. About a year ago, a report in the Austrian media said that Rupert Marco, the new assistant coach of the Israeli national team, wanted Sternzel as his assistant in the young national teams of Austria, but this rejected the offer for personal reasons. Eventually they both came to work for Rotensteiner in Israel.
In closed conversations, the football journalist in Austria even cynically claims that Rotensteiner only recruits Austrian professionals he believes in, so the Israeli team has more Austrian team members than the Austrian team itself. And they come and go as if it were the employment bureau.