After gaining promotion to the Austrian Bundesliga in their first season with SV Ried, there is an immense sense of pride and accomplishment for Moritz Kossmann and Antonio Van Wyk.
Kossmann, the former Cape Town City Diski Challenge coach, who had previously been at Ubuntu Academy, joined Ried’s technical team at the end of the 2023/24 campaign and a few months later, Van Wyk, who Kossmann coached at Ubuntu, signed from Stellenbosch.
In one of the toughest promotional leagues in Europe, it was a massive race all season, as Ried and Admira Wacker chased the top spot in the league, with just one team moving up each campaign.
Ried were on Admira’s heels for the entire campaign but last month moved into top spot after beating their rivals, and then secured the title with a game to go.
This was the first year in Europe for Bafana Bafana international Van Wyk, and Kossmann, who was born in Germany, but moved to South Africa as a child.
“The emotion that stands out about us winning promotion is one of immense pride and disbelief in terms of the accomplishment,” Kossmann told iDiski Times.
“We moved to SV Ried, both Tony and myself, with a clear target for the club to go back to the Austrian Bundesliga after it got relegated two years ago, and from the beginning of the season, we’ve been lodged into a tight race with Admira for who’s going to win the league.
“And eventually, after months of being second, we were able to beat them head-to-head and leapfrog them back into first place, and followed that up with a couple of other wins, which ultimately has led to us taking an unassailable lead, and going back to the Austrian Bundesliga.
“I think, in terms of South Africa, what it proves, hopefully, is that we as South Africans – and I do see myself very much as South African – us as South African players, and also coaches can go to Europe, and we can be successful. It’s one thing that in the past, several of our football people, players especially, have gone across and have a little bit struggled to make a mark.
“I’m proud of what we have done in terms of being able to win a trophy in the first season in a very difficult league with only one promotion spot, and managed to get to the Austrian Bundesliga, which is obviously going to be a different level in terms of the challenge.
“It will obviously take the very best from us to be able to prove ourselves at that level as well, but just a feeling, again, of immense pride of the achievement that we’ve managed to do, and just a lot of reward for an immense amount of hard work on a daily basis that it took for us to get there.”
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