The first of Town’s pre-season friendlies will come at the end of a training camp in Austria, something that has become commonplace under Kieran McKenna’s tenure.
The opposition will be FC Blau Weiss Linz, an Austrian Bundesliga side who finished sixth last season.
Literally translated to Blue White Football Club, they’re a unique team having only been formed in 1997 in their current guise. The old club, FC Linz, suffered financial troubles and was dissolved via merger into their archrivals LASK Linz, something that would be unthinkable in the English league.
The new side reached the Bundesliga in 2023 having won the second tier, a title they also won in the 2020/21 season but had promotion denied as they didn’t apply for a Bundesliga license.
Their form towards the end of last season was not great having only won one game in the Championship Round (The Austrian Bundesliga is a 12-team league which after the first two rounds of fixtures splits into a top six and a bottom six for the next two rounds)
They’re managed by Austrian Gerald Scheiblehner, who has a 14-year history in management largely in and around the Linz area. He took over Blau Weiss Linz in 2021 meaning that he was the man in charge for their promotion. He’s kept them in the league and built on that last season with the sixth-place finish.
They’re a team who like to press high but were susceptible to last-minute goals last season.
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