The last international break of the calendar year is behind us. A break in which destinies were decided. We're taking stock of the performances of our nine national team players and covering international debuts, goals and World Cup dreams that were fulfilled or dashed.

We made it – Austria are going to the 2026 World Cup! Alex Schlager, who presumably experienced the last tournament in 1998 still in diapers with a teddy bear, secured Austria's participation in the upcoming one as their dependable shotstopper. Gassi played the full 180 minutes against Cyprus (2-0) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (1-1).

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Even the skillful Kerim Alajbegovic's brief appearance at the Ernst Happel Stadium couldn't change the outcome. The 18-year-old had been partly responsible for his team going into the match yesterday with hope. On Saturday, Kerim came on as a substitute (in the 46th minute), set up the equaliser and ultimately the final goal in a 3-1 victory in the match against Romania. His Zmajevi now face a play-off for a spot in the World Cup.

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For Petar Ratkov and Aleksa Terzic, however, the World Cup dream has already been shattered. The Serbian national team – Aleksa playing until the 76th minute, with Petar a spectator – lost 0-2 to the flawless English. Our duo didn't feature in their final match against Latvia, which ended in a 2-1 win.

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We have a new international player in our ranks: Sota Kitano made his debut for the Japanese national team, coming on as a substitute for Takumi Minamino in the final 15 minutes of the friendly against Ghana. Samurai Blue celebrated a 2-0 victory. The newcomer watched the subsequent 3-0 win against Bolivia from the bench.

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Our U21 team kicked off a fine few days for Austrian football on Friday. With Jannik Schuster, buoyed by his guest appearance in the latest episode of our podcast, and Tim Trummer in the starting line-up, the young Austrians defeated group favourites Belgium 1-0 – meaning our youngsters will spend the winter break as group leaders in the U21 European Championship qualifiers, ahead of the tournament in Albania and Serbia in 2027.

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Level on points with the Austrian U21 team are the Danish Dynamite, for whom Clement Bischoff started both matches and had a fantastic week. First, he curled his team into the lead in the friendly against the USA – final score 1-1 – then he scored the winning goal in their qualifying match against Belarus.

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Switzerland, led by Enrique Aguilar, can now plan for the Elite Round, the final stage of qualifying for the U19 European Championships. The right-footed player started against Sweden and came on as a substitute in the final 15 minutes of the match against San Marino. Since Switzerland won both of these games, the heavy 0-7 defeat against Denmark in the final match, in which Enrique, as a starter, could do little to change the outcome, didn't matter: as the best third-placed team, our western neighbours advance.

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By the way: The fact that the U17 boys from the Red Bull Football Academy and our cooperation partner FC Liefering won't be returning to their usual U18 Youth League or #LigaZwa routine this weekend has a very good reason. Creative talent Johannes Moser & Co yesterday destroyed football powerhouse England 4-0 to make the U17 World Cup quarter-finals. Japan await our youngsters as their next challenge on Friday.

^{ÖFB/Andreas Pichler}

National team recap as Alex Schlager makes World Cup