With great determination and a firm belief that victory could be achieved, Rapid travelled to neighbouring Switzerland to face FC Thun on Thursday evening in this years curtain raiser in the UEFA Europa League Group G. Unfortunately the hope and belief failed to come to fruition and what lay in store was rather different to what the Green & White camp would have imagined. Straight from the kick off the home side snatched the initiative and began applying pressure on the Rapid goal: firstly Captain Hedinger ruffled the side netting (9.), before Marco Schneuwly forced Jan Novota into a smart early save (18.). The buoyant hosts came even nearer just a minute later when Christian Schneuwly fed the ball into brother Marco who failed to score when tantalisingly placed (19.).Rapid were struggling to gain any form of forward momentum and the few sites of goal they did have resulted in half chances and speculative efforts. A long free kick into the box from Louis Schaub (25.) evaded all and sundry, and was unfortunately Rapid's best moment of the game to that point. On the half hour mark Thun seemed to find an extra gear and ramped up the pressure on the Hütteldorfers' back line: Wittwer saw his decent effort repelled by Novota (31.), but the Rapid resistance was broken not long after when the influential Christian Schneuwly finished off a decent move having been played in behind Rapid's laboured defence - 0:1 (35). Disappointingly it was no surprise when the hosts finally took the lead.Both teams emerged unchanged for a second half in which Rapid would need to show a lot more attacking nous and flair to get back on terms with the dominant hosts. However it was Thun who nearly added a second when a Christian Schneuwly header just cleared the cross bar by a matter of inches not long after the restart (51.). Finally there was a sign of life from the Green & Whites but Marcel Sabitzer's shot from range went wide of the target (52.). Around the hour mark Rapid began enjoying their best spell of the match and looked capable of fashioning an equaliser: a series of corners built some pressure on the Swiss, and a couple of efforts from Petsos (68., 74.) seemed to suggest that Rapid's interest in the game was far from over. The Hütteldorfer's best chance of the evening fell to substitute Lukas Grozurek who having seen his one on one effort saved by Thun goalie Faivre (80.). He got a second chance as Boyd played him in but from a good position he was again unable to find a way past the home keeper (85.). That was as close as Rapid would come and the team had to return to Vienna empty handed. The focus now needs to shift to the weekends tough clash against SV Ried back at the Hanappi on Sunday.Zoran Barisic: "In the first half we were pretty sloppy. We set out to try to quickly move from offensive to defensive phases of play but it didn't happen. Thun could have taken the lead earlier. We were better organised in the second half, with a little luck we might have converted one of our half chances and grabbed an equaliser. Obviously wer'e disappointed, but we need to learn from these types of games."UEFA Europa League, Match Day 1, Group GFC Thun - SK Rapid 1:0 (1:0)Arena Thun, 7.200 Attendance, Ref Anastasios Kakos (GRE)Goal: 1:0 Christian Schneuwly (35.)Thun: Faivre - Lüthi, Reinmann, Sulmoni, Schirinzi - C. Schneuwly, Hediger, Zuffi, Sanogo Jr., Wittwer (73./Ferreira) - M. Schneuwly (80./Sabik)SK Rapid: Novota - Trimmel, Sonnleitner, Dibon, Schrammel - Petsos, Boskovic (80./Behrendt) - Burgstaller (80./Grozurek), S. Hofmann (63./Boyd), Schaub - SabitzerYellow Cards: Hediger, C. Schneuwly Grozurek, Sonnleitner(gw)
22.09.2013