{"id":4531,"date":"2026-06-11T11:25:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=4531"},"modified":"2026-06-11T11:25:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:25:21","slug":"after-3-years-away-a-surprise-fifa-world-cup-comeback-for-austrian-midfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=4531","title":{"rendered":"After 3 Years Away, A Surprise FIFA World Cup Comeback For Austrian Midfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The last time Dejan Ljubicic played for Austria was nearly three years ago. Now a teammate&#8217;s injury has given him a surprise comeback at the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Austria coach Ralf Rangnick called up Ljubicic late Wednesday to replace key midfielder Christoph Baumgartner, who injured his right thigh while warming up for a pre-World Cup friendly against Tunisia last week and needed surgery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Ljubicic is set to join Austria at the team camp in Santa Barbara on Thursday, ahead of the team&#8217;s first game on Tuesday against Jordan. Austria also plays Argentina and Algeria in Group J.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>He&#8217;s more of a defensive midfield option than Baumgartner, who scored 17 goals in all competitions for Leipzig in Germany last season and has remained in camp to support the team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Ljubicic also plays in Germany on the Schalke team which secured promotion from the second division last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Ljubicic has nine games for Austria but none at a major tournament. His last appearance was in a friendly against Moldova in September 2023 and he wasn&#8217;t in the squad for any World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14><i>Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY The last time Dejan Ljubicic played for Austria was nearly three years ago. Now a teammate&#8217;s injury has given him a surprise comeback at the World Cup. Austria coach Ralf Rangnick called up Ljubicic late Wednesday to replace key midfielder Christoph Baumgartner, who injured his right thigh while warming up for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}