SCR Altach retain Emilia Purtscher and Ylleza Kabashi: continuity in midfield and a new beginning after a serious injury
SCR Altach continue building their squad for the 2026/27 season by extending their cooperation with Emilia Purtscher and Ylleza Kabashi. The Austrian club announced that both players will remain in Altach, further strengthening the core of the women's team following a series of previously confirmed contracts. Purtscher has already been an important part of the midfield for several years, while Kabashi is still awaiting her real competitive beginning in the black-and-white shirt after a serious injury stopped her shortly after her arrival. The club did not announce the duration of the new contracts or any other financial details. The decision was presented as an investment in continuity, the development of young players and team stability ahead of the start of the new Austrian ADMIRAL Frauen Bundesliga season.
Sporting director Lisa Metzler emphasised that Purtscher has an important role both on and off the pitch, while in Kabashi's case she particularly highlighted her perseverance during the lengthy recovery process. According to Metzler, the 20-year-old forward continued working even after the major setback she suffered last season and never gave up on returning. Altach now believe that she can open a new chapter and finally show why she was brought in from the FC St. Gallen system. Extending the contracts of both players is also important for the club because of the balance of the squad: Purtscher brings knowledge of the league and the team, while Kabashi represents a potential new attacking option. Their stay comes at a time when the sporting project of the women's squad is being renewed under new coaching leadership.
Purtscher's path from local football development to an important role at Altach
Emilia Purtscher grew up as a footballer in the province of Vorarlberg, in the far west of Austria. She took her first more serious steps at FC Blau-Weiß Feldkirch and then continued her development at FFC Vorderland, a club that for years played an important role in building women's football in that part of the country. She subsequently went through the ÖFB women's academy programme in St. Pölten, the national development centre intended for Austria's most promising players. She returned to Altach in 2022, at a time when the first women's team was still competing as a joint project between SCR Altach and FFC Vorderland. Over time, she established herself as one of the players the team could rely on in the central area of the pitch.
Official club announcements from her earlier seasons describe Purtscher as a central midfielder who does not shy away from duels and who joins the attacking phase. Such a profile is particularly valuable for teams that want to connect winning possession, moving the ball forward and making late runs from deeper positions. Although the club did not go into a detailed tactical analysis in its latest announcement, Metzler's assessment that Purtscher has been an important part of the team for years shows how highly her reliability is valued. At the age of 21, she is still a player with room for improvement, but at the same time she already possesses experience that is significant in a young and changing dressing room. The contract extension is therefore not merely the retention of another squad member, but also the preservation of a link between the earlier phase of the Altach/Vorderland project and the current independent identity of the SCR Altach women's team.
Purtscher's club career developed in parallel with her appearances for Austria's youth national teams. Her ÖFB profile records appearances in several age categories, and in 2023 she was part of Austria's final U19 squad for the European Championship in Belgium. Qualification for the final tournament itself was an important achievement for a generation that concluded the qualifying campaign with victories over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and Italy. For the young midfielder, such a competition represented an opportunity to play matches against players of her own age from Europe's leading football systems. She later transferred the experience gained with the national team to the club environment, where she gradually received greater responsibility.
A historic World Cup with Austria's U20 national team
An even bigger international step followed in 2024, when Purtscher was included in Austria's squad for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Colombia. The ÖFB described the appearance as historic because it was the first qualification of an Austrian women's national team for a World Cup finals tournament. Austria defeated Ghana 2-1 and New Zealand 3-1 in the group stage before losing 0-2 to Japan. With six points, they finished second in Group E and qualified for the round of 16. There, North Korea, the eventual world champions, won 5-2 and brought Austria's campaign to an end.
For Purtscher, simply earning a place in the squad for such a tournament was confirmation of the development achieved through the club and national-team systems. A World Cup at youth level brings a different rhythm, travel, adaptation to weather and climatic conditions, and encounters with national teams from different football cultures. Such experiences are difficult to measure fully through an individual player's statistics, but they often accelerate an understanding of the game and professional demands. Altach are now retaining a footballer who has followed precisely such a development path, from a local football school to the European and global international stage. The club expect her stability to be important in a season in which the team are entering a new cycle.
Kabashi arrived at Altach as a talented forward but did not get the debut she wanted
Ylleza Kabashi joined SCR Altach in the summer of 2025 from FC St. Gallen's U20 team. At the time, the club presented her as a promising attacking player with international experience and a long development background within the Swiss system. According to Altach's announcement at the time of the transfer, she had been developing at St. Gallen since 2015, and in the youth categories she gained the experience that led her to a move to Austria's top division. In November 2023, she also made her debut for the Kosovo national team in a match in which Kosovo defeated Estonia 8-0. The move to Altach was supposed to be her next step towards regular senior football.
However, the plans changed almost immediately after the transfer. Kabashi suffered a cruciate ligament rupture and consequently spent the entire previous season outside competitive action. The club had already listed her among the long-term injured players at the end of August 2025, while the latest confirmation of the extension shows that Altach have decided to continue investing in her recovery and development. Instead of judging the cooperation on the basis of a season in which she was unable to play, the sporting management evidently retained its faith in the potential for which she was signed. This is an important message both to the player and to the dressing room, especially after a long rehabilitation period that often requires as much mental endurance as physical work.
Metzler emphasised that Kabashi continued working on herself throughout the entire process and did not give up. The club did not announce a precise plan for her return to official matches, her expected playing time or a medical timetable, so her integration will probably depend on the assessment of the coaching and medical staff. At this stage, the most important thing is for the return to be sustainable, without creating unnecessary pressure after a missed season. A fully fit Kabashi would give Altach a new attacking option, greater competition and additional squad depth. For the player herself, the new season represents an opportunity for her stay in Austria finally to acquire a competitive dimension.
Extensions as part of a broader plan to stabilise the squad
The retention of Purtscher and Kabashi follows a series of squad decisions announced by SCR Altach during the summer of 2026. The club previously confirmed one-year extensions with goalkeeper Zoe Steenhuis, defender Lara Baldauf, Liechtenstein international Salome Stampfli and Swiss U19 international Nayana Ebersold. Experienced midfielder Julia Kofler also extended her contract and will remain until the summer of 2027, while captain Vera Ellgass was likewise confirmed for another season. The common denominator in these moves is the retention of players who understand the demands of the club and the league. Such a policy reduces the need for the entire team to rebuild its understanding after every break.
Stability is particularly important because Altach are simultaneously undergoing changes in the coaching staff. For the 2026/27 season, the club appointed Leandro Simonelli as the new head coach of the women's team, with Jasmin Grill joining him as assistant coach. Simonelli returns to Vorarlberg, where he managed FFC Vorderland in 2019, meaning he is familiar with the local football environment and the history of the project from which the present-day team developed. New specialists in fitness preparation and video analysis have also been added to the staff, while some existing roles remained unchanged. The combination of new coaching leadership and the retention of a larger number of players allows changes to be made without a complete break in continuity.
According to an official SCR Altach announcement referring to Austria's football authorities, the club received a first-tier licence for the women's team for the 2026/27 season without any additional conditions. This confirmed the organisational and financial foundations for continued participation in the top division of Austrian women's football. The new league season begins in early August with an away match against SK Sturm from Graz, after which Altach will quickly face matches against clubs from Vienna and St. Pölten. The early part of the schedule will therefore immediately show how well the team have absorbed the demands of the new coaching staff. In that context, players who already know the system and the dressing room may have a particularly important role.
Two different stories, one shared message of trust
Purtscher and Kabashi enter the new season from very different positions. Purtscher is already an established member of the midfield, internationally experienced and thoroughly familiar with the environment at Altach. Kabashi, on the other hand, has gone through a year in which the main match was the one against injury, rehabilitation restrictions and uncertainty. One represents continuity, the other the possibility of a long-delayed beginning. That is precisely why the joint announcement of their extensions clearly demonstrates two dimensions of the club's policy: retaining proven value and showing patience with a young player whose potential has not yet been able to be displayed on the pitch.
For sporting director Metzler, both decisions also have significance for the dressing room. Purtscher was described as an important member of the team on and off the pitch, indicating that her influence goes beyond her position in the starting line-up. Kabashi was praised for her discipline and perseverance during recovery, qualities that also shape the team's culture. In professional sport, contracts are most often viewed through the number of appearances, goals or assists, but in this case the club also emphasised character, conduct during a difficult period and a long-term assessment of development. Responsibility is therefore now shared between the club, the coaching staff and the players to transform that trust into a stable and competitive season.
Ahead of the start of the competition, Altach still have no guarantee of what the immediate effect of these decisions will be. It has not been officially confirmed when Kabashi will be ready for the full competitive rhythm, while the new coaching hierarchy still has to define the roles of all the players. Nevertheless, retaining Purtscher gives the midfield a familiar and developed option, while continuing the cooperation with Kabashi preserves the possibility that the team will gain an attacking reinforcement during the season without making a new transfer. For both footballers, the extensions mean continuing their careers in an environment that knows them well. For SCR Altach, they represent another step towards a team intended to combine locally developed players, international experience and the patient construction of a long-term project.
Sources:
- SCR Altach – information on Ylleza Kabashi's arrival from FC St. Gallen, her development and international experience (link)
- SCR Altach – information on Emilia Purtscher's return to the team in 2022 and her position in midfield (link)
- SCR Altach – confirmation of Purtscher's inclusion in Austria's squad for the U19 European Championship in Belgium (link)
- ÖFB – official Austria U20 squad for the 2024 World Cup in Colombia (link)
- FIFA – official standings, group results and knockout-stage results of the 2024 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup (link)
- SCR Altach – previously confirmed contract extensions for four players as part of the squad stabilisation process (link)
- SCR Altach – extension of Julia Kofler's contract until the summer of 2027 (link)
- SCR Altach – confirmation that captain Vera Ellgass will remain for another season (link)
- SCR Altach – confirmation of the women's team's licence for the 2026/27 season without additional conditions (link)
- SCR Altach – women's team coaching staff for the 2026/27 season (link)
- SCR Altach – current schedule and information on the women's team's participation in the ADMIRAL Frauen Bundesliga (link)