Several of our lads swapped our club colours for the jerseys of their respective national teams for a few days in order to vie (for the most part) to qualify for major tournaments international events. The majority are returning to Taxham with at least one success under their belts.

Whether goalkeeper Alex Schlager will show the groundskeeping skills he demonstrated in Linz after his football career remains to be seen. It's good he can concentrate fully on the sport for now, playing a decisive role in the Austria's clean sheet and win against Cyprus with his saves. The Red-White-Reds followed this up with a 2-1 win in Bosnia with Gassi in goal again, and they remain unbeaten in World Cup qualifying after four games.

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Bosnia substitute Kerim Alajbegovic was unable to change this, despite the skillful player bringing momentum to their attacking efforts. The talented technical player had enjoyed his big day at the weekend: as his country's youngest competitive debutant, he showed off his talent against San Marino – getting an opponent sent off, providing an assist and scoring once in the 6-0 victory.

Nationalteam-Debüt, Tor und Assist. Eine erfolgreiche Woche für Kerim Alajbegovic 🇧🇦💫 pic.twitter.com/xnnf73oqtK
— FC Red Bull Salzburg (@RedBullSalzburg) September 10, 2025

Salko Hamzic and Jannik Schuster had to watch on as Austria U21 and Tim Trummer made an ideal start to U21 European qualifying. Our full-back then played the full 90 minutes in the 3-2 win over Belarus.

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Also in Group I are the young Danes with our new signing Clement Bischoff. The Danish Dynamite also got off to an impressive start, winning 6-2 in Wales thanks in part to two assists from the left winger, after previously losing 0-1 against Norway (Clement played for 45 minutes). The first direct encounter between our quartet will take place in October.
Meanwhile, the U19 team of our Alpine republic were also doing their best to qualify. While Christian Zawieschitzky conceded a decisive goal in injury time against his Belgian counterparts (1-2), he watched the subsequent 2-2 draw with Wales from the bench.
In the same age group, Enrique Aguilar and his Swiss teammates also took part in some friendly matches matches: the whizkid led his team to a 4:1 victory over Canada – with the 18-year-old substituted at half-time – but even he couldn't prevent the 0-1 defeat in Finland.
Aleksa Terzic made a brief appearance in World Cup qualifiers, helping his Serbian side to a 1-0 win in Latvia. He was not to blame for the 5-0 debacle against England, as the defender was not in the squad.

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International recap: groundskeepers and records