VIENNESE WHIRLWIND
McCormick hopes footballing journey criss-crossing globe will lead to the Champions League with Austria Vienna
AMID the bedlam of one of Europe’s rowdier derby fixtures, Mark McCormick blocked out the noise and entered the zone. Propelled to the frontline after a positive Covid test consigned head coach Manfred Schmid to isolation, Austria Vienna’s newly-promoted Scottish assistant stayed cool and helped direct his team to a valuable point at Rapid’s Allianz Stadium.
A year ago, McCormick was coaching the club’s Under-18 side but the appointment of Schmid, formerly assistant to Peter Stoeger at Borussia Dortmund, yielded his big break.
And so, after nearly two decades criss-crossing the globe in the name of a football education, McCormick is now targeting qualification for next season’s Champions League.
Fans of Livingston or Ross County might recognise the name. McCormick left Scotland after becoming ‘scunnered’ when a cruciate injury ground his playing career to a halt at Berwick in 2004.
He embarked on a fascinating journey that took him across the United States and to Australia, with a year at Sunderland thrown in for good measure.
One particular flit to New York City literally changed the direction of his life as he met Viennese partner Birgit while working as a bartender in Manhattan.
We’ll get to all of that in due course.
The 42-year-old takes Sportsmail’s call as he enjoys a lunchtime stroll along the banks of the Danube with Birgit and Finbar, their American Staffordshire Terrier.
It’s a much calmer vibe than the derby chaos into which he was plunged last month. Yet on that day he learnt something about himself that has only strengthened his resolve to pursue a top-level coaching career.
‘I’m on the sidelines with 26,000 fans, one of the most intense atmospheres in Europe,’ he recalls. ‘The Rapid fans are not shy! But I felt no nerves whatsoever.
‘You get used to what is around you, soak up the atmosphere and try to do the things that will allow the players to fulfil their potential.
‘I love coaching on the grass, that’s where I come alive. This feels like what I have been working towards. It is a step up in level. And working under this head coach is a real education.
‘Being around Manfred has been great for my development.’
A promising forward in his early playing days, McCormick fell victim to Livingston’s relentless recruitment drive as they climbed the divisions. While at
Almondvale (below right), a current serving Premiership manager was instructed to look after his kit.
‘Tam Courts was my boot boy,’ he laughs. ‘There must have been something in the air at that club because Gordon Forrest, Ray McKinnon and Robbo (John Robertson) were there, too.
‘I remember how it ended. We lost 4-0 to Raith Rovers one weekend. I went in on the Monday and Marvin Andrews, Steve Tosh and Alex Burns were all sitting in the dressing-room.
‘We’d signed Raith’s three best players. And that was the last time I was involved in a squad.
‘I moved to Ross County for a couple of years and then to Berwick, did my cruciate there and was scunnered. So I decided to go to the States and do a scholarship.’
McCormick kept playing in America, firstly at Virginia’s now defunct VIC school and then when he moved on to the University of Texas.
‘My dorm room in Brownsville was 500 metres from the Mexican border, we’d go over for food and drinks. The (drugs) cartel stuff was kicking off. It was brutal. Bananas. I’d hear gunshots.’
After 18 months there, he moved to New York to tackle a Masters in international education at the university’s graduate school. Fate twice grabbed hold of him.
‘I was looking for work and walked into the Grisly Pear bar and asked if they had any vacancies.
‘The guy’s wife took my CV and said: “Are you fae Wishaw?”. Turns out they were, too, and I got the job.
‘I was working during the 2010 World Cup and one night these two sisters came in looking to use the bathroom. They felt it would be rude not to buy a drink, so we got chatting and I asked Birgit out on a date. We went to Central Park. Very romantic!
‘I then moved to Vienna, not having a single word of German. I had been out of the game for a couple of years but I had a meeting with Austria Vienna and worked there for free for six months.
‘They offered me a position, assistant coach in the academy.’
In 2015, the couple moved to Sydney where McCormick worked through the ranks to become head coach for suburban second-tier club Northern Tigers, with a stint at Western Spirit and a masters qualification in sports coaching from Sydney University thrown in for good measure.
‘There’s a big Scottish contingent down there, so it was easy to settle,’ he adds. ‘And Sydney remains
Birgit’s dream city. I was in the stadium when Ange Postecoglou won the Asian Cup with Australia. That was a massive event.
‘As soon as he was mentioned in connection with the Celtic job all my family were on to me. I knew they had an absolute diamond.’
McCormick’s career took another turn when the English Premier League funded the installation of a head of coaching at member clubs.
‘I applied and went through a rigorous interview process while I was in Sydney,’ he explains. ‘It was Jimmy Sinclair who interviewed me and it turns out his wife is also from the same area as me!
‘He’d worked with the SFA and Rangers and we ended up in offices next door to each other. It won’t be understood how good a job he did for Sunderland.
‘I was responsible for coaching coaches and making them better. It was really interesting and great for my career but, from a personal perspective, it was a disaster as I’d left my family behind in Sydney.
‘Out of the blue, I got a call to come back to Vienna and coach the Under-18s. Jimmy understood that I was missing my partner. Birgit found a job and we came back with the idea of seeing how things go.
‘The new head coach came in and liked what I was doing. I’ve been working with the first team since Christmas.’
Vienna offers a calmer vibe, certainly compared to Brownsville or the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bed-Stuy that he called home in New York.
Yet in career terms, the pressure is on. As has become routine, Red Bull Salzburg comfortably top the Bundesliga table.
But with the play-offs in full swing, Austria Vienna’s game against second-placed Sturm Graz today is crucial in the fight for the European places.
‘We’re all fighting for second but Salzburg have pushed up the coefficient, so there is a Champions League place to aim for,’ he says. ‘Sturm Graz are a classic club with a bigger budget but this is a big game. And then we have Salzburg twice, back-toback home and away.
‘They’re at a different level. My Under-18s played them last year and they had a £3million player — there’s no way we could afford that in our first team.
‘But it depends how you frame it. I prefer to be positive — we have one of the best clubs and academies in world football in our back yard.
‘You can run away from
The cartel stuff kicked off. It was brutal. Bananas. I’d hear gunshots
that or see it as a chance to motivate people to go up against the best. ‘Countless clubs have thrown money at it but Salzburg have done it really well through scouting and structuring. They stick to a 4-4-2 diamond formation, so there’s no confusion.
‘There are clear pathways for players and coaches to take the next step. The club now sells itself. ‘Erling Haaland has come through, Patson Daka, too. When I started here, ourselves and Rapid would be fighting for the best players in the city. Now they are at Red Bull because that pathway exists to take them to Leipzig and beyond.’ McCormick has lived in Vienna long enough to develop a proficiency in the language but is still learning. ‘My German is absolutely average,’ he says. ‘There is no hiding place because my missus teaches English and German!
‘All my coaching is done in German daily but the Glasgow bit never leaves you. When you get angry and start slaughtering people — in English!’
Does he ever foresee a return to the motherland? Despite years of adventure, the answer is emphatic. ‘I miss Scotland every day,’ he says. ‘I miss my family, my friends. I’ve missed funerals, weddings, all the things that add up to life experience, and all because of my job.
‘You know that’s the gig when you work in football. But if the right opportunity ever came up in Scotland, then I’d be interested.’