Austria’s family charge up the rankings.

Austria head coach Marcel Koller was in good spirits as he took to the podium at the Austrian Football Association’s press conference in Vienna on Wednesday 9 September 2015, wearing a beret and clutching a baguette in one hand. The laid-back Swiss coach had a very good reason for this unusual sartorial selection after Austria booked their ticket to UEFA EURO 2016 in France the previous evening.
“For a long time now I’ve been emphasising that we haven’t got there yet, but now it’s official: France here we come!” Koller gleefully declared. “This performance has brought joy not just to me but to the whole of Austria, and working with the team is unbelievably good fun. The players have become friends and worked hard for this success.”
The team have also made history by qualifying for Europe’s biggest international tournament via their group for the very first time [Editor’s note: they qualified automatically as co-hosts in 2008]. The triumph also serves as a crowning achievement for the current upturn in Austria’s footballing fortunes, with their 13^th spot in the September edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking marking the country’s highest placing since the table was first introduced.
The neighbours of the current world champions were 70^th in the world as recently as four years ago, having previously recorded an all-time low ranking of 92^nd in 2008. Former coach Didi Constantini resigned after a series of disappointing results in the run-up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™, prompting Koller to take the helm in November 2011. The team have steadily improved ever since and almost got within reach of a place at last summer's World Cup, a narrow loss to Sweden meaning they finished third in a challenging group that also included eventual winners Germany.