FC Liefering

Liefering is a district on the northern edge of Salzburg. A village club called USK Anif, founded in 1947, won the 2. Klasse B in 1950, the 1. Klasse Nord twice in the 1960s and 70s, then the Salzburg Liga on four separate occasions.

That changed in June 2012, when Red Bull asked for the name to be changed to FC Liefering. The first season under the new badge brought the Regionalliga West title, and with it promotion to the second tier.

So the squad is built to be temporary. The average age sits under 20, and the point of the exercise is the player who leaves rather than the team that finishes. Dominik Szoboszlai passed through on his way to Salzburg and then out of Austria altogether; Konrad Laimer, Amadou Haidara and Hwang Hee-chan came the same route. Nobody in the dressing room expects to be there for a third season.

Home games are not in Liefering at all. The club plays at the Stadion Grödig, a 4,330-seat ground in a separate municipality south of the city, borrowed from a club that once had its own top-flight spell there.

Three times — in 2015, 2017 and 2021 — Liefering finished second in the second division, and three times the finish meant nothing beyond the table. The Young Bulls have never played a competitive match in the Austrian Bundesliga, and under the current arrangement they cannot.