From the Battle of Wrexham to wunderkind Woodburn’s audacious entrance: a brief history of Wales v Austria (part four)

When Wales welcome Austria to the Cardiff City Stadium tomorrow evening for a vital World Cup play-off semi-final, it will be the eleventh instalment in an intermittent rivalry that has produced some memorable moments dating back to the first meeting in 1954.

Coleman earns draw with goal on debut

Following their triumph against Austria at the Racecourse in November 1975, Wales enjoyed a period of unprecedented competitiveness and consistency in international football over the next two decades.

Unfortunately, they never achieved their aim of appearing in a showpiece summer tournament. 

Even after topping their qualifying group for the 1976 European Championship, their reward was a tough quarter-final tie over two legs against Yugoslavia, one of the strongest sides in the world.

Wales bowed out 3–1 on aggregate after the second leg descended into violence on and off the pitch in what became known as the Battle of Ninian Park, which surpassed even the Battle of Wrexham in notoriety.

For the rest of the era, they were beset by a series of near misses under Mike Smith, Mike England and Terry Yorath.

Yorath, who had captained Wales to victory over Austria in 1975, was the manager when the two countries met again, in late April 1992.

The otherwise nondescript friendly is mainly notable, in hindsight, for the debut of former Swansea City defender Chris Coleman as a second-half substitute.

Coleman replaced his Crystal Palace colleague Eric Young in defence and netted the equaliser that earned Wales a 1–1 draw in Vienna.

He would eventually earn 32 caps and score four international goals before returning as manager a decade after his playing career was curtailed by injury.

Late goals thwart Toshack’s Wales

Wales were still reeling from their failure to qualify for Euro 2004, the departure of Mark Hughes as manager and the retirement of Gary Speed when they contested a double-header with Austria in March 2005.

The two countries were part of a World Cup qualifying group also containing England and Poland, who would both comfortably progress to the finals in Germany.

Wales, in their first competitive match under John Toshack, included future manager Robert Page alongside Danny Gabbidon in defence and Ryan Giggs, John Hartson, Craig Bellamy and Simon Davies in attack in the first meeting at the Millennium Stadium.

However, this seemingly potent strike force was unable to penetrate the visitors’ defence and Toshack's side were undone by two goals in the last 10 minutes by Ivica Vastić and Martin Stranzl.

This familiar theme of the Toshack era would be revisited in Vienna four days later. 

On this occasion, Bellamy and Giggs squandered a glut of chances to put Wales in front before Danny Coyne, who had succeeded Paul Jones as keeper, allowed René Aufhauser’s shot to squirm past him at the near post with barely three minutes remaining.

Wunderkind Woodburn’s audacious entrance

Those back-to-back victories in 2005 remain Austria’s most recent successes against Wales, who prevailed in two of the three encounters between the two nations during Chris Coleman’s six-year reign.

The first was a welcome 2–1 win for Coleman’s side at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea in February 2013, just four months after they had been thrashed 6–1 by Serbia in Novi Sad.

Wales were captained by Ashley Williams and also in the starting line-up that night were Gareth Bale, Ben Davies, Joe Allen and Joe Ledley, while Chris Gunter, Hal Robson-Kanu and Sam Vokes appeared off the bench in the second half.

They would all be key members of the squad that marched to the semi-finals of Euro 2016, forty years after Mike Smith’s team were denied by Yugoslavia in the last eight.

Coleman, who had presided over the long-awaited renaissance, continued at the helm for one more campaign.

Attempting to reach the World Cup finals for the first time since 1958, Wales were drawn in a fiercely competitive group with Serbia, the Republic of Ireland, Austria, Georgia and Moldova.

After thrashing Moldova 4–0, there were no easy pickings on offer and Coleman’s side drew five successive matches to leave themselves on the brink of elimination.

One of those draws had been a four-goal thriller in Vienna in October 2016 during which Marko Arnautovic twice equalised for Austria soon after Wales had taken the lead.

The rematch at the Cardiff City Stadium 11 months later seemed to be heading for another stalemate until Coleman handed precocious teenager Ben Woodburn his international debut at a delicate moment.

Within five minutes, the 17-year-old substitute made the most of his unexpected opportunity, unleashing an unstoppable long-range shot to grab the only goal and revive Wales’ slim hopes of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup finals.

Woodburn has yet to fulfil his early promise, but his place in Welsh football history was secure from the moment that he thumped the ball into the back of the net on that autumn night in Cardiff.