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Austrian Cup winners are PAOK’s first obstacle
A young team with an average age of 25.2 years, and a squad mostly made up of mainly native Austrians – only seven foreign players – and a team that wears black and white. Austrian Cup winners Wolfsberger come to the Toumba Stadium for the first leg of the 3rd qualifying round of the Europa League.
- Wolfsberger AC, also known as Wolfsberg or simply WAC, is an Austrian football club from Wolfsberg in Carinthia, in southern Austria, on the border with Slovenia. Thanks to the only trophy in their history (last season’s Austrian Cup), they are now testing their… European strengths.
- The Austrians’ greatest success in European competitions is qualifying for the Europa League groups in the 2019–20 season, as they had finished third in the 2018–19 Austrian Bundesliga. They were eliminated in the round of 32, losing 8–1 on aggregate to Tottenham.
- In the Austrian championship in the 2024-25 season, Wolfsberger finished fourth – ten points behind the top – collecting 36 points, after 11 wins, eight losses and three draws, with a goal difference of 44-30. They maintained the same position after the ten matches for the Play-offs, where they suffered only one defeat (5-4-1), scored 16 times, while conceding eight goals. They were only three points behind Sturm Graz, who were crowned champions.
- The “ticket” to the Europa League was clinched after winning the Austrian Cup. They beat Linz 2-1 in the final and celebrated the first trophy conquest in their history.
- The team’s coach is 54-year-old Austrian Dietmann Kübauer, who took over in the summer of 2024.
- The Austrian championship for the 2025-26 season began on August 2 for Wolfsberger, who lost 0-2 at home to Altach. Earlier, on July 25, they qualified for the «Round of 32» of the Austrian Cup, beating Wallern 3-1 away.
- The club was founded by Adolf Ptazcowsky, Karl Weber, Hermann Maierhofer, Franz Hafner and Michael Schlacher in 1931.
- For the first 37 years of their history, they played in lower divisions and achieved promotion to the Austrian Regional League (2nd tier) in 1968. Since then, they have been «up and down»… until 2011–12, when they secured promotion one more to the Austrian Bundesliga and have been in the top flight ever since.
- The team has been known as «RZ Pellets WAC» since the 2014–15 season, due to a sponsorship.
- The team’s home ground is the Lavanttal-Arena, with a capacity of 7,300 seats. However, the return leg on August 14 will be held in the city of Klagenfurt, about 60 km from Wolfsberger, at the 30,000-capacity Worthersee Stadion.
