VIKINGS PREPARED FOR ‘DIFFERENT, CONFIDENT’ PRAGUE

The Vienna Vikings got back to winning ways against their oldest rival last weekend but will not be resting on their laurels going into Week 8 of the European League of Football.

Having seen their long unbeaten regular season streak ended at home by the Rhein Fire two weeks ago, the Vikings needed to restore morale with victory against Austrian rival Raiders Tirol in the eighth ‘Battle For Austria’ last weekend. Despite having raced into a comfortable lead, however, last year’s losing finalists almost came unstuck as Tirol mounted a frantic late comeback, before escaping Innsbruck with a 44-38 road win that could prove crucial when playoff seedings are determined.

With the win, head coach Chris Calaycay’s team not only maintained its position at the top of the league’s Eastern Division, but ensured that it remains one win ahead of this week’s visitors to the Austrian capital. The Prague Lions, for two years the whipping boys of the ELF, have transformed into this season’s surprise package, having won four games on the trot to sit at 4-2 and behind only Vienna in the East standings.

“It was a heated encounter [in Innsbruck] and, of course, we’re happy about the win,” Calaycay said. “We would have preferred not to have given up three touchdowns at the end of the game, but that’s also a learning experience. Credit to the Raiders for being able to fight through and come back from the deficit that they were in, but there were some mistakes towards the end of the game that need to be analysed and corrected quickly, because the Lions are coming to us on Saturday, and they’re currently on a roll.”

Prague will be the first visitors this season to the Vikings alternative home at the Datenpol Arena in Südstadt. While they have won every game against the Lions so far — including this season’s opening game — the Prague team is currently on a winning streak, having recently defeated Wroclaw, Hamburg and Frankfurt, and arrives in Austria with confidence.

“We know that Prague are a hot team right now,” Calaycay told the media during Vienna’s weekly call-in. “They’ve won their last four games; their defense is playing pretty tough right now; their offense is very unique — and Willie Patterson is a definite threat on that side of the ball. So we really have to make sure that we have him in the game plan and take care of him.

“The expectation is to have a very confident Prague team come in here, and that’s always hard. When a team’s playing well and they believe in what’s going on, it makes it more difficult. It’s really cool to see the Prague Lions take a step up this season, and it’s cool for the league, but obviously we have to go out and take care of business. I think, if we execute, with the roster that we have, with the guys that are playing and the players that we have, we’re going to give ourselves a great chance to win the football game.”

Whilst the Vikings run game has continued to be proficient in recent games —

Johannes Schütz (90 yards, 1 TD) and Florian Wegan (104 yards) both excelled in the rematch with the Raiders — the backfield will be bolstered this weekend by the return of Karri Pajarinen, who was lost to injury early in the season.

“Karri is activated,” Calaycay confirmed. “As always, with guys coming back, we have to make sure that we’re monitoring how they’re doing, but we’ve had very good progress with Karri and we’re excited to see him back in this offense again. He was one of the leading running backs in the league last year, and had a very good start to the season, but unfortunately had a shoulder injury.

“We’ve made sure that we got we got him back to 100 percent healthy so he could be back and playing, and he will have a role [this weekend]. How much he gets, really depends on how he’s feeling during the game.”

While Pajarinen’s return is a boost for the Vikings, injuries elsewhere have seen Elmeri Laalo replace his fellow Finn on IR for the next three weeks, although Calaycay remains confident that the key defensive back will be back in action as soon as the mandatory period is up.

With tight end Florian Bierbaumer (three touchdowns and 91 yards) and wide receiver Reece Horn (two touchdowns and 62 yards) unable to be contained by the Raiders defense — and others before that — the Vikings’ offense is hardly short of options, especially when QB Ben Holmes also has 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year Noah Touré to throw to. Holmes, himself, is on midseason pace to set a new franchise record with 1,288 air yards, 21 passing touchdowns and only two interceptions to his name ahead of the game against Prague.

On defense, DB Divine Buckrham — who returns this week after a slight injury scare against Tirol — made a big play with an early interception, while Vienna’s two starting linebackers, Noel Swancar (nine tackles) and Timi Nuikka (eight tackles), led the game’s defensive stats. Devin Taylor, who replaced the injured Amani Dennis in the secondary debuted with eight tackles, while Viljo Lempinen added seven tackles and a sack as the entire defense performed strongly until those shaky closing minutes.

Despite that, however, Calaycay expects that this weekend’s opponent is going to keep his roster on it toes.

“We say it every year, but the ELF continues to develop, and it’s really great to see franchises taking that step forward instead of just collapsing,” the head coach explained, perhaps mindful of issues seemingly affecting other struggling franchises in the league. “Prague has done that this year and it’s a credit to the coaching staff under Coach Warner. They’ve done a great job of being creative, having a plan in place and then being able to execute. It’s so huge for the league as you see that every season is an opportunity for someone to get better. It makes my job tougher, but that’s football.”

The Lions showed from their first game of the year, against the Vikings in Prague, that they would not be the pushover of recent seasons and, although they fell into a 0-2 hole early on, have improved to the point where — after road wins over Wroclaw, Hamburg and Frankfurt — they arrive in Vienna confident that they can take the game to last year’s beaten finalists.

“I think we need to build on what we did in the first game,” Calaycay said. “I mean, it was a 28-7 game up there on the road, and we did some things well, but we also saw that their D-line is active. They haven’t changed a whole lot on the defensive side of the ball — they run their stuff and they run it well — and they’ve got good players to do it with.

“The offensive side of the ball is a little bit different for Prague now. They’ve changed quite a bit, utilising a lot of different formations and being creative in finding ways to not hide Willie Patterson, but find more ways to get him the football. So it’s very different from Week 1 ‘til now.

“We’re just trying to build on what we do and continue to get better each week. The last couple of weeks, we were talking about third down conversion percentage and completion percentage and moving the sticks and more first downs. This week, we’re we’re talking about preventing the big play and those types of things. We’re just trying to continue to get better at our stuff and our craft, and that’ll help us out versus Prague this week.”