Riegler focused on bigger picture

His side may have bowed out of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship but midfielder Jan-Marc Riegler believes the experience of the last week will bear long-term benefit for Austria.

Early exit
The hosts kicked off the final tournament with hopes high of repeating their feat from 2006 and reaching the semi-finals, but an opening defeat against the side who ended their campaign a year ago, Spain, left Austria playing catch-up in Group A. A 1-1 draw with Greece on Matchday 2 left them needing victory against Portugal to have any chance of progressing but instead second-half goals from Bura and Daniel Carriço left them bottom of the section, although Riegler preferred to look at the bigger picture. "It's so important to play against the top teams and the top players," he told uefa.com.

'Super chance'
The majority of the Austria squad are yet to make the step up to senior football with most contracted to lower-division or amateur sides, while those who do play in the Austrian Bundesliga - such as SV Ried's Riegler with two league appearances in 2006/07 - are on the fringes of the first-team squad. "As a lot of us do not get much playing time at club level, it is important to play against top teams and players," he explained. "Some of these players come from the top divisions in Spain and Greece and play in the Champions League, so it was a super chance for us to see how we stacked up against them."

Minor details
Riegler believes the gap between Austria and European superpowers such as Spain is not as wide as results may indicate, pointing to a succession of minor details which combined have proved costly. "We were missing a certain amount of concentration, fine-tuning and composure in front of goal and we needed to be more compact in defence," he said. "We made one mistake and other teams punished us. We wanted to show our best and do some good things, including making the semi-finals. Unfortunately we did not accomplish our goal."

'Something special'
Riegler's emotions were particularly mixed in Saturday's loss to Portugal in front of a packed house of 7,600 fans - including many familiar faces - at Ried's Fill Metallbau Stadion, where he also plays his club football. "It's really something special to play in front of my home crowd," he said. "There were a lot of friends and family on hand. I wish we could have won for them, and I just hope I get the chance to play more for the club at this stadium."