Transfer to LASK?

Hartberg’s “Euro-Max” is about to leave

Max Entrup (left) scored his first goal in national team kit in the spring.

(Bild: Sepp Pail)

Hartberg's footballers have to travel to Vienna to face Rapid on Sunday afternoon to round off the season. A points haul will secure fifth place and the European Cup play-off. According to reports, these are likely to be the last TSV games for team striker Max Entrup, who could move to Linz.

The lapse that happened to Max Entrup in a recent interview with "Sky" is unlikely to have come from anywhere. Question from the reporter: "Do you already know where you'll be playing next season?" Entrup's quick answer: "No." Brief consideration, then a quick follow-up: "Oh well, I've got a contract in Hartberg, so in Hartberg."

Oh well, I have a contract in Hartberg, so I play in Hartberg.

Max Entrup

The latter sounded unconvincing to all those who had assumed that the center forward would remain at TSV. In fact, according to reports, we are slowly but surely convinced that Entrup will leave the Hartberg stage

The Hartberg striker (left) is probably on the verge of a move to LASK.

(Bild: Thomas Pichler / SEPA.Media / picturedesk.com)

The 26-year-old wrote his own fairytale in Eastern Styria. Brought back into the limelight from the regional league by TSV, mutated into a top scorer under Markus Schopp and subsequently also an ÖFB international. And a "transfer jewel" for a club of TSV's size: Entrup was due to move to Holstein Kiel (Germany) in the winter. It would have been the first million-euro transfer in Hartberg's history. However, Entrup and his entourage played their cards out at the last minute.

LASK as the winner?
Now, however, the tide may have turned decisively: A current offer from Hartberg to extend his contract, which runs until June 2025, has not yet been answered by Entrup - probably because better-paid offers from direct Bundesliga competitors have fluttered in at the same time. On the one hand, Vienna's Austria are said to have been interested in the striker recently. However, the race for "Euro-Max", who has legitimate hopes of being nominated for the European Championship, is now said to have been won by LASK.

What remains for Hartberg? On the one hand, the hope that Entrup will fire TSV into the European Cup qualifiers. And on the other, the highest transfer fee in the club's history.