FRANCE 98 – Chile-Austria – A. Polster: “The match against Chile will certainly be a tough one”

News from Andrézieux-Bouthéon near SAINT-ETIENNE, Tuesday 16 June 1998.

The AUSTRIA team (Group B) arrived at 11:25 am, Tuesday 16 June at Andrézieux-Bouthéon airport. On their arrival, a press conference was held at the Novotel hotel in Andrézieux.

“CHILE wants to and must win this match, so they could play exceptionally well. This team showed us that it was very strong in the midfield during the match against ITALY. Their attack is equally efficient. ZAMORANO is an exceptional player even if all depends on his fitness on the match day. It won’t be easy for AUSTRIA but we are confident. CHILE are one of the two favourites in the group along with ITALY, so to win we’ll have to play well”.

Andreas HERAF (20):

“We are ready to face CHILE. The first match was very important, and if we win, we will be well placed in the group. We won’t be under any particular pressure for this match; our tactics will be the same as those against CAMEROON. CHILE are the favourites, they had an excellent game against ITALY and have some excellent players, such as, ZAMORANO (9) and SALAS (11). CHILE’s strength lies with their attackers and the team plays an offensive game. Having said this, we could win if we play a faster paced game than the one against CAMEROON. In my opinion, we’ll get to the second round and then we’ll see afterwards. I think ARGENTINA is the world cup favourite but GERMANY and BRAZIL are equally very talented. As for France, they have an excellent team, but their weakness lies in attack, they need a striker.”

Anton POLSTER (19)

“The match against CHILE will certainly be a tough one but we could win, you never know. CHILE’s got the “magic twins”, Marcelo SALAS (11) and Ivan ZAMORANO (9) who we’ve got to try to control. We’re going to change the way we play to increase our potential. Small teams have got better technically and physically during this world cup. After the first round, there will only be perhaps four or five teams that won’t have won any matches at all”.

Andreas HERZOG (10).

“During the match against CAMEROON, we paid too much attention to our opponent’s game instead of playing our own kind of football. We won’t do this against CHILE. My health problems are stale news, I feel fit.