The team qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup by winning its European qualifying group, ending an absence of 28 years, and reached the round of 32 before losing to the eventual champions Spain. That was its first appearance in a knockout round since 1982. At the European Championship, Austria appeared as co-hosts with Switzerland in 2008 and then qualified in 2016, 2020 and 2024, reaching the round of 16 in the last two.
At the 1978 FIFA World Cup Austria won its first round group ahead of Brazil but lost its opening two second round matches. In the last of them, against West Germany, it produced the win remembered as the Miracle of Córdoba, beating a German national side for the first time in 47 years and eliminating the holders of the previous tournament's runners-up place.
History
Football reached Austria in the late nineteenth century, and from 1900 a cup competition was played in Vienna under the name Neues Wiener Tagblatt-Pokal. The country's first league followed in 1911, the 1. Klasse, organised by the football federation of Lower Austria. It became a professional competition in 1924 and was renamed the I. Liga. An amateur championship was introduced in 1929, from which the professional clubs of Vienna were excluded, and was won by Grazer AK.
The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought the abolition of professionalism in May of that year. Jewish clubs, among them Hakoah Vienna, were dissolved, and clubs with Jewish officials and members, Austria Wien among them, were forced to restructure. The Austrian top division, renamed the Nationalliga in 1937–38, was absorbed into the competition structure of the National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (German: Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen). The Gauliga Ostmark covered most of the country, while Tyrol and Vorarlberg were attached to the Bavarian structure, and its champion entered the German championship.
After the Second World War the Vienna league was reactivated as the top division for three seasons. A dispute between the amateur and professional wings of the game then led the leading clubs to break with the Vienna association and form their own competition, the Österreichische Fußball-Staatsliga, which was admitted to the ÖFB in July 1949 as its tenth member alongside the nine state associations. The resulting Staatsliga A was the first genuinely national league, and a second division, the Staatsliga B, followed a year later and ran until 1959.
On 21 April 1974 the Bundesliga was introduced as the top division, and the Nationalliga became the second tier. That division has since been renamed several times and has been the 2. Liga since 2018. The Bundesliga has been run since 1 December 1991 by the Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, a legally separate association within the ÖFB, while the ÖFB itself organises the Austrian Cup and the national teams.
The men's national team is controlled by the ÖFB. It played its first official match on 12 October 1902 in Vienna, beating Hungary 5–0 in the first international contested between two continental European sides.
Under Ralf Rangnick, appointed in 2022, the team won its 2026 World Cup qualifying group with six wins from eight matches and a goal difference of 22–4, securing its place with a 1–1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 18 November 2025. At the tournament it finished second in a group containing Argentina, Algeria and Jordan, then lost 3–0 to Spain in the round of 32.
Marko Arnautović holds both principal records. He passed Andreas Herzog's 103 appearances in September 2022 and overtook Toni Polster's 44 goals on 9 October 2025, scoring four in a 10–0 win over San Marino that was also Austria's largest ever victory, beating a 9–0 win over Malta in 1977. He extended both marks at the 2026 World Cup, where he also became the oldest player to represent Austria at the tournament, at 37 years and 59 days.
Competitions
League system
The Bundesliga is the highest national club competition in Austria and is contested by 12 teams. The second tier is the 2. Liga, with 16 teams. The third tier consists of four parallel divisions known as the Regionalliga, each covering the area of one or more state associations: the East comprises clubs from Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland; the North clubs from Upper Austria and Salzburg; the South clubs from Styria, Carinthia and East Tyrol; and the West clubs from Tyrol, excluding East Tyrol, and Vorarlberg. This structure replaced a three-division third tier in 2026–27.
Winning a Regionalliga no longer brings automatic promotion. Since 2026–27 the best eligible club in each of the four divisions enters a promotion play-off, contested as two two-legged ties whose pairings are drawn before the season. The two winners go up to the 2. Liga. Should a further place in the 2. Liga fall vacant, the losing club from the first tie drawn is promoted as well. Because only two clubs now come up, only two are relegated from the 2. Liga, where previously there were three. The ÖFB introduced the change after repeated seasons in which clubs that had qualified on the pitch declined to apply for a second tier licence.
The fourth tier consists of nine divisions, one for each state association, and the champion of each is promoted to the Regionalliga covering its area. Seven are named after the state or carry the Landesliga title. The other two, in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, kept the names they were given in 2019 when the Regionalliga West was broken up into state competitions, and dropped to the fourth tier when it was restored in 2023–24. Below the fourth tier the structure is set by each state association and the number of levels differs from state to state. In Vienna, unofficial tiers exist beneath the official ones. They are not organised by the ÖFB, but in theory their champions can be promoted into the official structure.
Until 1982 the championship was organized by Wiener Fußball-Verband. After that date he went to the organization of the National Federation. The championship has a national character for the first two divisions, ÖFB-Frauenliga and 2. Frauenliga, which in turn is divided into three groups: Mitte / West (composed of 10 teams), Ost (11) and Süd (7). The first of each group runs the promotions for the promotion, retires the last ranked. Regional tournaments are organized, organized by the individual Federation of Land, from 3rd to 5th level.
Until 2004, the winner contested the Austrian Supercup against the winners of the Austrian Cup.
In the 2010-2011 season, 334 teams are registered.
The Austrian women's national team debuted on 9 July 1970 before the selection of Mexico in a match won by the Mexicans by 9-0 in Italy. The Austrian women's team has not yet participated in a the FIFA Women's World Cup but reached the semi-finals of the European Championship in 2017.
Largest football stadiums in Austria
Stadiums with a capacity of 30,000 or higher are included.
↑Liga-Fussball in Österreich 1900–1995[League football in Austria 1900–1995] (in German). DSFS. 1996. p.34.
↑Kastler, Karl (1972). Fussballsport in Österreich – Von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart[Football in Austria – From its beginnings to the present day] (in German). Linz: Rudolf Trauner Verlag. pp.56–57. ISBN3853201113.
↑Dürr, Hubert (1990). Die Sozialgeschichte des Fußballspiels in Österreich (1896 bis 1911)[The Social History of Football in Austria (1896 to 1911)] (in German). Vienna: Diplomarbeit. Universität Wien.
↑Maderthaner, Wolfgang; Horak, Roman (1997). Mehr als nur ein Spiel. Fußball und populare Kulturen im Wien der Moderne[More than just a game. Football and popular culture in modern-day Vienna] (in German). Vienna: Löcker. pp.131–139.
↑Schidrowitz, Leo (1951). Geschichte des Fußballsports in Österreich[The History of Football in Austria] (in German). Vienna: Verlag Rudolf Traunau.
Austria
