{"id":14206,"date":"2026-04-29T13:41:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=14206"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:41:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:41:33","slug":"motherwell-elijah-justs-rise-from-austrian-second-tier-to-premiership-standout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=14206","title":{"rendered":"Motherwell: Elijah Just’s rise from Austrian second tier to Premiership standout"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When Elijah Just signed for Motherwell from Danish side Horsens last summer, there was no huge excitement or anticipation.<\/b><\/p>\n

The diminutive New Zealand international was unknown to most and many doubted whether his small stature would stand up to the hurly-burly of Scottish football.<\/p>\n

Despite his international experience, he had only played one season of top-flight football since leaving New Zealand for Europe in 2019. And he was in the Austrian second division last season, on loan at SKN St Polten.<\/p>\n

However, the 25-year-old has lit up the Scottish Premiership this term, a shining light for Jens Berthel Askou’s eye-catching outfit, who are fourth in the table.<\/p>\n

Just has been shortlisted for PFA Scotland’s Premiership player of the year award – alongside team-mate Tawanda Maswanhise and Hearts duo Lawrence Shankland and Claudio Braga – an honour he did not expect.<\/p>\n

“It’s really special, not something I expected when I got the call, let alone six months or 12 months ago,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’d bounced around a little bit in Europe, especially in some of the second leagues, so I knew coming to Scotland would be a step up.<\/p>\n

“To be recognised is really, really humbling. It’s exceeded my expectations and I just had so much fun this year.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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When Elijah Just signed for Motherwell from Danish side Horsens last summer, there was no huge excitement or anticipation. The diminutive New Zealand international was unknown to most and many doubted whether his small stature would stand up to the hurly-burly of Scottish football. Despite his international experience, he had only played one season of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}