The OÖN had already reported exclusively on this this morning, and now it’s official: LASK has parted ways with head coach Thomas Darazs. Markus Schopp will take over with immediate effect and will also take on the role of sports director. The 50-year-old signed a contract with the athletes until summer 2027.
With this decision, the club is taking recent sporting developments into account. In the Bundesliga, LASK suffered four defeats in a row, and the black and whites have been waiting for a win for six competitive matches. Last Sunday, they suffered a 1:5 home defeat against Wolfsberger AC.
On Tuesday afternoon, Schopp will lead his first training session on the training ground next to the Raiffeisen Arena. The Styrian will make his competitive debut after the international break on Saturday, September 14, in the away derby against FC Blau-Weiß Linz.
Schopp began his second term as coach of TSV Hartberg in December 2022, where he also held the position of sporting director. Before that, he had worked as head coach at FC Barnsley, for three more years in Hartberg and for the second team of SK Sturm Graz, where he had also managed the professional team on an interim basis. With Hartberg, he made it into the top six twice and competed with the Styrian team in the 2020/21 UEFA Europa League qualifiers. He reached the national European Cup play-offs with Hartberg two more times. During his career as a player, Schopp made a total of 462 professional appearances for SK Sturm, RB Salzburg, Brescia, Hamburger SV and RB New York, including 19 in the UEFA Champions League, and was twice Austrian champion and cup winner. He also made 56 international appearances for the Austrian national team.
Schopp is taking his previous assistant Alexander Marchat with him to LASK. The 50-year-old will also serve as sporting director in a dual role. The previous sports director Radovan Vujanovic is leaving the club at his own request. The former attacker initially returned to the Linz team as sports director in September 2021 and then took over the position of sports director. During his tenure, LASK qualified for international competition two more times and recently finished third in the Bundesliga twice in a row.
“The development and performance in recent weeks have prompted us to take this step and hire a new coach. Thomas Darazs took over as coach in the spring during a difficult phase and led us to third place. He deserves a big thank you for that. We are very happy that we have now been able to recruit a very experienced coach in Markus Schopp, who has been doing outstanding work in Hartberg in particular for many years. We would also like to thank Sport Director Radovan Vujanovic for his services. He has made a significant contribution to us regularly achieving a place in the European Cup in recent years,” says CEO Siegmund Gruber.
Markus Schopp is looking forward to the new task: “With LASK, an exciting task awaits us both in the domestic league and internationally in the Conference League, and I am very much looking forward to it. The aim with this team can only be not only to build on the successes of the past few years, but also to take further steps forward. I am approaching the new tasks at LASK with great motivation and at the same time I would like to thank TSV Hartberg for the very successful time together and the opportunity to develop many players, but also myself as a coach.”