Hoffer double adds to Romania's gloom

Two goals from Erwin Hoffer enabled Austria to come from a goal down to beat struggling Romania 2-1 in Klagenfurt in FIFA World Cup qualification Group 7.

Serbia losses
Both sides were eager to repair the damage caused by home defeats by section leaders Serbia in their last outings and the visitors appeared on course to take the spoils when Cristian Tanase opened the scoring. But Hoffer levelled immediately before adding the winner in the final moments of the first half.

Captain replaced
Austria's new coach Dietmar Constantini made plenty of changes to his line-up, leaving out captain Andreas Ivanschitz and bringing in two debutants in Daniel Beichler from SK Sturm Graz and Yasin Pehlivan of SK Rapid Wien. After a slow start, the game burst into life in the 24th minute when Tanase lobbed his shot over Austrian goalkeeper Michael Gspurning only for the hosts to equalise seconds later as Hoffer took advantage of mistakes by Răzvan Raţ and Gabriel Tamaş to score.

Knee injury
Austria continued to push forwards and took the lead a minute before the break as Hoffer struck again, running through the Romanian defence and beating goalkeeper Bogdan Lobonţ. His celebrations were tempered, tough, when a knee injury forced him off after 54 minutes but Romania were unable to breach the compact Austrian backline with Gspurning dealing with some good attempts late in the game.