Mario Kempes is rooting for Vienna
The former Argentinian world cup winning champion is convinced that Vienna will win the Ostliga title and get promoted back to the second division. On Friday he will be rooting for his former club who are facing Bruck an der Leitha.
Mario Kempes, world cup winner with Argentina in 1978, still has ties to his previous club. The 67-year-old former world-class striker, who played at Hohe Warte from February 1986 to July 1987 and scored eleven goals in that time, follows Vienna on social media and knows about the match against Bruck an der Leitha. Already one point against the Lower Austrian side is enough for the “Döblingers” to decide the championship in their favour.
"This weekend it's all about getting promoted. You can't let a chance like this slip away. This is a final. And you have to win a final. It doesn't matter how you play. Whether good, bad, normal - you have to win. Vienna has to get promoted to the second division. I wish you all the luck in the world," Kempes said in a greeting message posted by the club on its social media and website www.1894.at.
El Matador, as the 43-time Argentina team player Kempes is known, top scorer at the 1978 World Cup, world footballer and European Cup winner with Valencia, made a comeback to Hohe Warte in 2019. Back then, the ESPN commentator visited his former club at the 125th anniversary celebrations of Austria's oldest football club. Since then, there has been a lively exchange and the former world-class baller keeps on sending encouraging messages to Döbling via his social media channels once in a while.
South America's footballer of the 80s, who was voted "the player with the most sex appeal" during the 1978 world cup, joined Vienna as a 31-year-old. The “Kronenzeitung” commented on the transfer at that time: “That's like as if the Pope would be the parish priest of Grinzing from spring onwards". The man with the waving long hair triggered a huge euphoria in Döbling. At his home debut, around 15,000 spectators filled the stands of the Naturarena Hohe Warte.
The transfer from Valencia to Hohe Warte is still considered the biggest transfer ever in Austrian football history. At the time, the signing of Kempes was a sensation, something like Lionel Messi moving from Paris St. Germain to Vienna today.
