Every time they win a title, there is a decline. That's why today Sturm Graz fans are asking themselves if there really is a whiff of better times or if they should expect another difficult period.
Ivica Osim built a great team in 2000 and is considered a legend. They won the title under him in the late 1990s and the trident of Mario Haas, Ivica Vastic and Hannes Reinmayr is still remembered by fans.
What came after is something they would prefer to erase from their memories. The good times had not been reversed by then President Hannes Kartnig. He ended up behind bars for tax evasion. The club was shaken up and threatened with bankruptcy.
They seemed to be back in 2011 when they won the championship. The year before, they had even won the Austrian Cup. But instead, what came after was Salzburg's domination, which lasted for 10 long years.
Sturm started to get back on their feet gradually. From eighth place in the 2018/19 season, they climbed to second place in 2023.
By the 2023/24 season, the hurricane had arrived and swept Salzburg off their throne.
The championship title was celebrated in Graz after 13 years, and the Champions League group stage for the first time in 24 years. On top of that, coach Christian Ilzer's side managed to win the Austrian Cup. Czech goalkeeper Vitezslav Jaros, who was on loan at the club from Liverpool to replace the injured number one, made sure of everything in goal.
"In no other European league is there such a big financial gap between one club and the rest of the competition as in Austria. But we have shown in recent years that we can match them with far less money," said sporting director Andreas Schicker.
Today, both Schicker and Ilzer no longer work at the club - both left for Hoffenheim during the season. However, their fingerprints will remain on the renaissance of the traditional Austrian club for a long time to come.
Much credit goes to president Christian Jauk, who joined the club in 2012 and watched Salzburg's dominance live. Four years later, a new strategy began to take effect at Sturm. The club focused on player scouting. It invested in the scouting department and aimed to generate profit through the transfer market, but at the same time not to weaken the squad appreciably.
For the first four years, the department was headed by former goalkeeper Gunter Kreissl. However, in 2020 he was replaced as sporting director by Andreas Schicker, until then head of scouting. Sturm began to flourish under the 34-year-old. The man whose career was ended by a fatal injury when he lost his arm while handling fireworks ensured that Sturm are once again a respected club in Austria.
Quality scouting has become the alpha and omega for the staff. After taking office, Schicker got rid of 13 players from the original squad and began a massive rebuilding process.
Sturm were newly looking for young players, in whom he saw commercial potential. However, he was no longer just looking within his own ranks or within the country but was increasingly scouting abroad. The results came soon enough. The estimated value of the players has risen from an initial €28 million to €69 million as of the summer of 2020. At the same time, the club was constantly selling its best players.
In the selection process, the sports department placed emphasis on character and mentality, which Schicker described with the example of Rasmus Hojlund. The Danish striker struggled in Copenhagen. He had already made his debut at the age of 17 but was not able to make an impact.
Sturm, however, saw a great opportunity in him. The Austrian side paid €1.9 million and bought the forward in January 2022.
In August that year, Hojlund moved to Atalanta for €20 million, only to join Manchester United a year later for €70 million.
"But everything was preceded by a lot of calls. We were in contact not only with him and the club but also with his family. Rasmus' character was amazing. He was incredibly mentally strong for his age," Schicker described.
But Hojlund was not the only masterpiece of the gifted director.
He brought in and sold striker Emanuel Emegha (Strasbourg, €13 million) at a profit. Similarly, Kelvin Yeboah (Genoa, €6.5 million) and Alexander Prass (Hoffenheim, €9.5 million) left. The last big deal was striker Mika Biereth, who Sturm bought from Arsenal for €9 million and sold for €13m to Monaco this winter.
"Our aim was to build a team that will be successful and will be based on a few experienced players and around them will be promising youngsters who will improve and ask for another transfer up a tier," Schicker recounted to the BBC.
"To make it work you have to find a balance between results, qualifying for European cups and developing the talent you want to sell."
In the 38-year-old manager's words, his job at Graz was made considerably easier by the club's strategy, which everyone respected.
"Our advantage was that when we decided to scout players, we had already clearly defined who we were looking for beforehand. In other words, at every position we had set out what we required from a player to fit into our style of football and we continued to be successful. When you are searching in a huge sea of players, it makes your job a lot easier."
Coach Ilzer also had a hand in the success. He set Sturm up with a physically demanding style that emulated the Salzburg way. The team worked on pressing, the energy was evident in their play, and on the domestic scene, other opponents found it difficult to match Sturm's intensity. Ilzer's principles were even compared to those of Bayer Leverkusen under Xabi Alonso.
Add to that the fact that Salzburg had ceased to be a priority in the eyes of the global community after the death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz and had become more of a farm for RB Leipzig, and Schicker and Ilzer sensed the perfect opportunity.
Since Schicker took over as director, Sturm have bought players worth €29m and sold them for €69m, making a profit of almost €40m. Salzburg have made a profit of 200 million over the same period... It was not for nothing that Schicker was said to be the best director in Austria after Christoph Freund left Salzburg for Bayern Munich.
While on the outside Sturm appear to be a well-run club that is well-resourced though, not everything is ideal on the inside - the club continues to struggle financially. Even though they sell players and have been active in Europe, they pay high costs. Even their stadium doesn't belong to them and the fans dream of having their own.
Selling players is supposed to bring in funds so Sturm can afford it. Last year, after deducting repayments, taxes and various debts, the net profit was around €30,000.
Moreover, the helm of the club is no longer run by the duo of Schicker and Ilzer, who could not resist the lure of the German Bundesliga. Hoffenheim, who made big changes in the sports department last season, had already asked for their services.
The duo from Graz refused for many months. But during the autumn, both sides had already found a compromise and the men who got Sturm ahead of Salzburg went further afield.
Even without their presence, the club leads the Austrian league by three points over Austria Vienna. In the Champions League, they picked up six points, beating Leipzig at the end of the league phase to finish in 30th place.
The future rests on the shoulders of sporting director Michael Parensen and coach Jurgen Saumel. While the former is following Schicker in the transfer market, the former professional footballer is trying to reeducate Sturm to a slightly different football than the one that brought massive success.
He is more into control and ball possession, whereas under Ilzer the players were tasked with playing vertically and taking risks.
Fans are nervously looking to see what this will mean for the club. Has one successful era come to an end, or has Sturm established itself as the new rival for Salzburg? Only the coming months will bring the truth.