In the wake of the Valentin Senn commitment, I had a chance to sit down with an expert on football in Austria to ask him some questions on what it's like to play football in Europe, how you start playing football and how it compares to football in the States. Hope you enjoy.
Servus Walter, why don’t you introduce yourself first and tell us a little about your football background
I founded the website www.football-austria.com in 2005 and have been doing NFL commentary for an Austrian TV channel fort he last 10 years. We show about 30 games a season plus every playoff games as well as, obviously, the Super Bowl.
The TV channel I work for also organises Europe’s biggest Super Bowl party with around 4,300 people in Vienna. In 2015 I received the ROMY award (Austrian equivalent of the Emmy) and received 2 Austrian sports journalism awards (2008 and 2013).
I never played tackle football, only flag football, and have no plans to do so at 50, but I’ve been having an eye on the sport since 1988 and have been following it intensely since 1996.
As we hardly know anything about football in Europe, we are obviously very curious to hear what you can tell us about football on the continent and in Austria. Particularly in regards to how you would compare it to the US level.
Football in Europe is usually played with college rules, although we only play 12 minutes a quarter.
Football in Austria has been rising fairly steadily since the late 90s for 2 reasons: You have a fairly high media presence with the Super Bowl being on TV every year and also AFL (Austrian league) games get shown on TV and the other is that about that time the clubs began to professionalise themselves by giving themselves professional structures and also investing in and creating a network for youth player development. The Vienna Vikings were pioneers in that field and the Raiders Tirol (Editor’s note: Senn’s team) followed etc. In the last 15 years the sports has been growing by 7-10 % every year and we now have roughly 8,000 registered players in 55 clubs (Editor's note: For comparison, Germany has 63,000 registered players in 500 clubs). That picture looked a whole lot different 15 years ago.
As for how it compares to the US, I’d personally say it’s about average NCAA Div II level, the national team, Vikings and Raiders have repeatedly won against D3 teams but that’s where we have plateaued for now. In order to take the next step I think we need more big guys for the trenches as well as playmakers (read QBs), which isn’t all that surprising as those are the 2 positions where you either need guys with not exactly common physical traits or where you need to spend a lot of time learning how to play the position. You kind of see that problem in the Austrian league as 8 clubs have American QBs, which obviously doesn’t bode well for the national team.
How many practices do they have every week?
The AFL top teams have 4 practices a week, with one of them usually being voluntary. In addition to that you have gym sessions as well as game film sessions. For some time now we’ve had a school in Vienna for student athletes, where they are accommodating towards the athletic side and handle things a little more flexibly than you would in a normal school, and a football academy. The Vienna Vikings also have a school program from eight grade (age 13-14) until the twelfth grade and they obviously take a lot of their players from there. But others are trying to establish similar programs and even begin with flag football at around age 6.
What’s the usual AFL season like?
In the AFL you have a minimum of 10 games with a maximum of 13. In addition you usually have 1-3 international games for the top teams.
What are the top European leagues? And how does Austria compare to them?
The German Football League (GFL) has to be considered slightly better than the AFL as you’re allowed more foreign players in Germany (2 from Canada, US, Mexico and Japan) and Europeans don’t count as such. In Austria the previous season's 4 playoff teams are allowed 2 and the non-playoff teams 3 so called Class A guys. Those can be Europeans, but in practice those are guys who either played collegially in the States or who get paid for it (and getting paid here can mean gas money), so those can be Austrians as well. That’s why AFL sides will always have a tough time competing with Braunschweig, for example, who have up to 12 “professionals”. But they aren’t quite as much worse as you’d think. (Editor's note: Schwäbisch Hall won the last German Bowl with a German QB as well as RBs, which was previously unheard of)
The Austrian federation has been focusing on the national team for a few years now. Austria is a 4 time U19 European champion and the senior side won bronze in 2010 and silver in 2014, so the goal obviously is to win the thing this year (Editor's note: Germany wasn't invited).
How do the European clubs acquire players and how do you even start to play such a niche sport?
We have 2 national try outs every year, which happen twice annually and the teams themselves obviously try to strike partnerships with local schools. So they’re actively trying to recruit kids to play football, but you also have a natural stream of guys who just want give football a shot because they saw it on TV and think it looks interesting. Clubs are usually founded in around February after the Super Bowl when a few guys basically think “Hey, we’ll give this a shot!”. Quite a few really good programs have been created this way over the years. We also talk about this a lot on our TV shows and tell people what they need to found a club and how we can support them with it. The president of the Austrian federation is my co commentator there and I was in charge of the development of the media department there myself for 6 years before I switched sides to baseball in 2016, my second love after football.
What can you tell us about the coaches in Europe and their background? The Raiders coach Shuan Fatah is very highly respected in European coaching circles from what we know. And what can you tell us about the Raiders and Senn’s situation there?
I cannot really say a lot about the Raiders and Senn’s situation there as I am 300 miles away here in Vienna. They have a smaller roster than the Vikings, but some really good athletes and work very hard to compete with a club from the biggest city in the country (Editor: roughly 25% of Austrians live in or around Vienna). I’d go talk to Shuan, he’s a really nice guy and as you said: He’s an elite coache, who also coaches the Austrian national team. Shuan also regularly features on our TV show as a studio analyst. Unlike with the players there’s no limit on the paid coaches you can have, quite the opposite is the case as the federation actively tries to support the acquisition of know how any way they can.
Going to the US obviously is a huge step up on just about every level you can imagine. Where do you personally see the biggest problem in regards to the football on the field itself. There’s another reason in the Pac-12 with Thomas Schaffer at Stanford, although he played prep level football in Illinois and didn’t come to the Pac-12 from Europe directly. Is there anything you think Valentin can learn from him and his way?
I cannot say a lot about this unfortunately. I can really only go by what Tom or others told me. He’s a clever young kid, who primarily chose Stanford for academic reasons. From what I can tell he doesn’t have many issues academically and, yes, of course, It’s certainly the more usual way to at least play at a US HS or prep level school for a year or so before you go college.
It seems to be a relatively new trend for European kids to go to college in the US directly out of Europe and doesn’t seem absolutely necessary anymore for kids to at least play HS or prep level ball here for a year. Björn Werner (ACC DPOY, first round draft pick out of FSU) seems to be the prime example here for the prep level route …
Yeah, see above. Björn has built this business (Editor’s note: Gridiron imports, Joshka Gustav landed at CU through this connection as well) and seems to be very serious about it from what I can tell.
How do you personally see this development? Bruce Feldman published an article in The Athletic earlier this week. One of the top programs in the country in Michigan took a kid straight out of Germany in their 2018 class and an ACC school like Virginia this week accepted a commitment from a QB straight directly from Germany.
Don’t know anything about either. But I am very surprised to see Virginia took a QB as so far most US colleges have only been looking for big guys with the European kids and prefer to give the ball to the American kids. I of course see this as a very promising and good development. Quite a few of the 9/10 year-olds who start playing tackle football with us ultimately have the dream of going to the States to play at the HS, College or sometimes even NFL level. There’re a few Germans where this has worked, but not for any Austrians so far. But I have no doubt that will come, just like in all the other European countries.
Servus Walter, why don’t you introduce yourself first and tell us a little about your football background
I founded the website www.football-austria.com in 2005 and have been doing NFL commentary for an Austrian TV channel fort he last 10 years. We show about 30 games a season plus every playoff games as well as, obviously, the Super Bowl.
The TV channel I work for also organises Europe’s biggest Super Bowl party with around 4,300 people in Vienna. In 2015 I received the ROMY award (Austrian equivalent of the Emmy) and received 2 Austrian sports journalism awards (2008 and 2013).
I never played tackle football, only flag football, and have no plans to do so at 50, but I’ve been having an eye on the sport since 1988 and have been following it intensely since 1996.
As we hardly know anything about football in Europe, we are obviously very curious to hear what you can tell us about football on the continent and in Austria. Particularly in regards to how you would compare it to the US level.
Football in Europe is usually played with college rules, although we only play 12 minutes a quarter.
Football in Austria has been rising fairly steadily since the late 90s for 2 reasons: You have a fairly high media presence with the Super Bowl being on TV every year and also AFL (Austrian league) games get shown on TV and the other is that about that time the clubs began to professionalise themselves by giving themselves professional structures and also investing in and creating a network for youth player development. The Vienna Vikings were pioneers in that field and the Raiders Tirol (Editor’s note: Senn’s team) followed etc. In the last 15 years the sports has been growing by 7-10 % every year and we now have roughly 8,000 registered players in 55 clubs (Editor's note: For comparison, Germany has 63,000 registered players in 500 clubs). That picture looked a whole lot different 15 years ago.
As for how it compares to the US, I’d personally say it’s about average NCAA Div II level, the national team, Vikings and Raiders have repeatedly won against D3 teams but that’s where we have plateaued for now. In order to take the next step I think we need more big guys for the trenches as well as playmakers (read QBs), which isn’t all that surprising as those are the 2 positions where you either need guys with not exactly common physical traits or where you need to spend a lot of time learning how to play the position. You kind of see that problem in the Austrian league as 8 clubs have American QBs, which obviously doesn’t bode well for the national team.
How many practices do they have every week?
The AFL top teams have 4 practices a week, with one of them usually being voluntary. In addition to that you have gym sessions as well as game film sessions. For some time now we’ve had a school in Vienna for student athletes, where they are accommodating towards the athletic side and handle things a little more flexibly than you would in a normal school, and a football academy. The Vienna Vikings also have a school program from eight grade (age 13-14) until the twelfth grade and they obviously take a lot of their players from there. But others are trying to establish similar programs and even begin with flag football at around age 6.
What’s the usual AFL season like?
In the AFL you have a minimum of 10 games with a maximum of 13. In addition you usually have 1-3 international games for the top teams.
What are the top European leagues? And how does Austria compare to them?
The German Football League (GFL) has to be considered slightly better than the AFL as you’re allowed more foreign players in Germany (2 from Canada, US, Mexico and Japan) and Europeans don’t count as such. In Austria the previous season's 4 playoff teams are allowed 2 and the non-playoff teams 3 so called Class A guys. Those can be Europeans, but in practice those are guys who either played collegially in the States or who get paid for it (and getting paid here can mean gas money), so those can be Austrians as well. That’s why AFL sides will always have a tough time competing with Braunschweig, for example, who have up to 12 “professionals”. But they aren’t quite as much worse as you’d think. (Editor's note: Schwäbisch Hall won the last German Bowl with a German QB as well as RBs, which was previously unheard of)
The Austrian federation has been focusing on the national team for a few years now. Austria is a 4 time U19 European champion and the senior side won bronze in 2010 and silver in 2014, so the goal obviously is to win the thing this year (Editor's note: Germany wasn't invited).
How do the European clubs acquire players and how do you even start to play such a niche sport?
We have 2 national try outs every year, which happen twice annually and the teams themselves obviously try to strike partnerships with local schools. So they’re actively trying to recruit kids to play football, but you also have a natural stream of guys who just want give football a shot because they saw it on TV and think it looks interesting. Clubs are usually founded in around February after the Super Bowl when a few guys basically think “Hey, we’ll give this a shot!”. Quite a few really good programs have been created this way over the years. We also talk about this a lot on our TV shows and tell people what they need to found a club and how we can support them with it. The president of the Austrian federation is my co commentator there and I was in charge of the development of the media department there myself for 6 years before I switched sides to baseball in 2016, my second love after football.
What can you tell us about the coaches in Europe and their background? The Raiders coach Shuan Fatah is very highly respected in European coaching circles from what we know. And what can you tell us about the Raiders and Senn’s situation there?
I cannot really say a lot about the Raiders and Senn’s situation there as I am 300 miles away here in Vienna. They have a smaller roster than the Vikings, but some really good athletes and work very hard to compete with a club from the biggest city in the country (Editor: roughly 25% of Austrians live in or around Vienna). I’d go talk to Shuan, he’s a really nice guy and as you said: He’s an elite coache, who also coaches the Austrian national team. Shuan also regularly features on our TV show as a studio analyst. Unlike with the players there’s no limit on the paid coaches you can have, quite the opposite is the case as the federation actively tries to support the acquisition of know how any way they can.
Going to the US obviously is a huge step up on just about every level you can imagine. Where do you personally see the biggest problem in regards to the football on the field itself. There’s another reason in the Pac-12 with Thomas Schaffer at Stanford, although he played prep level football in Illinois and didn’t come to the Pac-12 from Europe directly. Is there anything you think Valentin can learn from him and his way?
I cannot say a lot about this unfortunately. I can really only go by what Tom or others told me. He’s a clever young kid, who primarily chose Stanford for academic reasons. From what I can tell he doesn’t have many issues academically and, yes, of course, It’s certainly the more usual way to at least play at a US HS or prep level school for a year or so before you go college.
It seems to be a relatively new trend for European kids to go to college in the US directly out of Europe and doesn’t seem absolutely necessary anymore for kids to at least play HS or prep level ball here for a year. Björn Werner (ACC DPOY, first round draft pick out of FSU) seems to be the prime example here for the prep level route …
Yeah, see above. Björn has built this business (Editor’s note: Gridiron imports, Joshka Gustav landed at CU through this connection as well) and seems to be very serious about it from what I can tell.
How do you personally see this development? Bruce Feldman published an article in The Athletic earlier this week. One of the top programs in the country in Michigan took a kid straight out of Germany in their 2018 class and an ACC school like Virginia this week accepted a commitment from a QB straight directly from Germany.
Don’t know anything about either. But I am very surprised to see Virginia took a QB as so far most US colleges have only been looking for big guys with the European kids and prefer to give the ball to the American kids. I of course see this as a very promising and good development. Quite a few of the 9/10 year-olds who start playing tackle football with us ultimately have the dream of going to the States to play at the HS, College or sometimes even NFL level. There’re a few Germans where this has worked, but not for any Austrians so far. But I have no doubt that will come, just like in all the other European countries.
