Football in Austria

Football is the most popular sport in Austria. The Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB (Österreichischer Fußball-Bund), was founded in 1904 and has been a member of FIFA since then. Despite the sport's popularity, except for a successful streak in the early 1930s, the country's national team has not been successful in tournaments. Austria played their first ever European championship as a qualifier in 2016, but finished last in their group and failed to advance. Their only prior appearance in the European championship was in 2008 (when it co-hosted the championship with Switzerland and was thus exempt from qualification), but was promptly eliminated already at the group stage.

In the World Cup, Austria has a slightly better record, achieving fourth and third place in 1934 and 1954, respectively. Other than that, Austria either did not enter (1930), did not qualify (1966, 1970, 1974, 1986, 1994, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022), withdrew (1938, 1950, 1962), or was either eliminated at the group stages (1958, 1990, 1998), or the second rounds (1978, 1982).

In 1978 Austria won its group ahead of Brazil. In the group of the second round, any chance of progressing was gone after losses in the two first matches. But in the last match, against West Germany, which had chances of progressing even to the final, the Austrians produced what would become known as The Miracle of Córdoba, winning against any German national team (West, East or unified) for the first time in 47 years, thus eliminating the West German team from the tournament.