Patrick Wimmer #21

Profile

Wimmer is a rarity in modern football: he is not an academy product, nor is he a polished system player. Rejected by St Pölten, he ended up in the lower leagues at Gaflenz and only got his chance at Austria Vienna after a club vice-president pushed to sign him, going so far as collecting video footage of Wimmer’s matches. Perhaps that is exactly what Rangnick values: a player that can be wildly unpredictable, direct in attack, and a strong dribbler capable of unexpected passes. Wimmer grew up on a farm in a tiny village in Lower Austria with just 16 households. He was nudged into football more by his grandmother than by his own ambition, and was even an international weightlifting champion between the ages of 10 and 14. He also trained as a mechatronics technician and says becoming a professional footballer was never really the plan. One Opta stat from 2023 captured his quality: among players with at least 500 minutes in Europe’s top five leagues, only Kevin De Bruyne, Wimmer and Lionel Messi had averaged more than one major chance created per game.

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