Plus, Entrup was 26, he had never been capped or played a full season of top-flight football in his career. Austria had players from Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and Borussia Dortmund, but Hartberg?
And yet, here he is in Germany, part of a squad that will on Tuesday aim to go further in a major tournament than any Austrian team has since 1982.
Entrup’s story is a pretty remarkable one. It has been called a fairytale with good reason.
His senior career began unassumingly enough as a burgeoning teenage striker who earned a move to Rapid Vienna from second-tier side FAC.
Entrup, having just turned 19, looked set for his big break with the first team. Then, Rapid Vienna fans made a discovery that would indelibly change Entrup’s career path; he had played in the youth ranks of their hated rivals Austria Vienna. More pertinently, he had been a member of their ultras fan group, Infernos.
