It was the 67th minute of the group match between Austria and Poland when Marko Arnautovic felt the need to get something off his chest. The 35-year-old is the captain of the Austrian team in David Alaba’s absence. In this role, he is allowed to talk to the referee without receiving a yellow card, which is why some observers in Austria see the armband on his sleeve as protection against an immediate suspension. Arnautovic, however, had nothing to say to the referee at that moment, as Halil Umut Meler was busy restarting the game anyway.
Instead, Arnautovic addressed his own team: He waved his arms, pressed his palms towards the ground, and shouted loudly across the pitch. Marko Arnautovic, in every respect one of the loudest players in Austrian football history, wanted to calm his team down. Now just don’t let the game slip out of your hands again!
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There was certainly reason for this. Shortly before, the Austrians had taken the lead again, and the decisive 2:1 came from a wonderfully played goal by Christoph Baumgartner. But it was only the interim high point in a very Austrian drama that would continue for the remaining minutes of the match.
Then came the pitfalls of the second act – and anyone looking for visual material to support the thesis that Rangnick’s team must continue to fend off suspicions of naivety found it. One bad pass followed another, and the Austrians brought the opposition back into the game completely unnecessarily. Krzysztof Piatek accepted one of the invitations in the 30th minute. Following an inadequately defended corner, the striker scored in a place he knows very well: Piatek once played for Hertha BSC for three years. His first European Championship goal can still be described as the highlight of his career in the Olympic Stadium.
Baumgartner scores carefully and then falls into his coach’s arms
The Austrians continued to appear unsure, they struggled to control the game and come up with decent offensive moves. Again and again, small, wrong decisions made it difficult for them to get to the goal – until Arnautovic had the brilliant idea of not touching the ball. Because the striker let the cross from full-back Alexander Prass through, the ball reached Baumgartner in the 66th minute, who calmly scored the 2-1.
“The whole nation deserves this,” said the goalscorer later, who had fallen into his coach’s arms after the goal. “He supported me every day, and at half-time he told me that he needed me,” said the RB Leipzig striker. “So this is also a thank you to him.”
The Poles now clearly lacked the conviction to come back. Even the previously celebrated substitution of Robert Lewandowski did not change that. Instead, in the 77th minute, Marcel Sabitzer stole away after a long kick and was fouled in the penalty area by Poland’s goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny – penalty, the final chord.
Arnautovic wipes the tears from his eyes
Arnautovic grabbed the ball, whose calming tactics had basically not worked up to that point. Shortly after asking his teammates to control the game with a little more calm and precision, Arnautovic was shown the yellow card for a shove. But that was wiped away by the penalty, which Arnautovic converted with power.
The significance of the goal for the player, the team and yes, the country could be seen about half a minute later. The crowd around Arnautovic had just thinned out and the captain of a team that can be both brilliant and naive at the same time – and that now still has a realistic chance of reaching the round of 16 of this European Championship – strode across the pitch. Marko Arnautovic, he wiped the tears from his eyes.