Xaver Schlager (; born 28 September 1997) is an Austrian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as

defensive midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundari ...

for

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

club

RB Leipzig RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V. (), commonly known as RB Leipzig, and colloquially referred to as Red Bull Leipzig, is a German professional football club based in Leipzig, Saxony. The club was founded in 2009 by the initiative of the company Red Bul ...

and the Austria national team.

Club career

Red Bull Salzburg

After playing for the youth team of SC St. Valentin, Schlager joined the FC Red Bull Salzburg Academy in 2011, where he played in all teams. In 2015, Schlager was transferred to FC Liefering, the feeder team of FC Red Bull Salzburg. During the 2017–18 season, Salzburg had their best ever European campaign. They finished top of their Europa League group, for a record fourth time, before beating Real Sociedad and

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...

thus making their first ever appearance in the UEFA Europa League semi-final. On 3 May 2018, he played in the Europa League semi-finals as

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

beat Salzburg 3–2 on aggregate to secure a place in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

VfL Wolfsburg

On the 26 June 2019, Schlager signed for

club

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...

. During his time with Wolfsburg, Schlager made 81 appearances in all competitions, including 69 in the Bundesliga. He missed 20 league matches through injury during his final season, but still averaged 27 pressures per game whilst producing a goal and two assists.

RB Leipzig

On 17 June 2022, Schlager joined Bundesliga rivals

, after the club activated a release clause in his Wolfsburg contract. He signed a contract until 2026. Schlager helped Leipzig to win the

German Cup The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

and

German Super Cup German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

in 2023, starting the latter, coming on as substitute in the German Cup Final.

International career

On 23 March 2018, Schlager debuted for the Austrian senior squad in a friendly 3–0 victory over

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

. The same year on 18 September, he scored his first goal in a

2018–19 UEFA Nations League The 2018–19 UEFA Nations League was the inaugural season of the UEFA Nations League, an international association football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of UEFA. The league phase of the competiti ...

match against

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

Career statistics

Club

International

International goals

:''Scores and results list Austria's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Schlager goal.''

Honours

Red Bull Salzburg * Austrian Bundesliga: 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19 * Austrian Cup: 2015–16, 2016–17, 2018–19 RB Leipzig *

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

* DFL-Supercup:

2023 Events Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1927 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ** Croatia will adopt the eu ...

References

External links

Profile
at the RB Leipzig website *
OFB Profile
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schlager, Xaver 1997 births Living people Footballers from Linz Men's association football midfielders Austrian men's footballers Austria men's youth international footballers Austria men's under-21 international footballers Austria men's international footballers FC Liefering players FC Red Bull Salzburg players VfL Wolfsburg players VfL Wolfsburg II players RB Leipzig players Austrian Football Bundesliga players 2. Liga (Austria) players Bundesliga players Regionalliga players UEFA Euro 2020 players Austrian expatriate men's footballers Austrian expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany