Good work out for fringe players against FAC despite 1:3 defeat

On Friday afternoon the lads took to the training pitches at the Ernst Happel Stadium for their next friendly match. Floridsdorfer AC were the opponents, making the short hop across the Danube to take on the Green & Whites in front of 300 Rapid fans. It was once again a fairly experimental Hütteldorfer 11 picked by Zoran Barisic for this match against opponents from the second tier of Austrian football.

The early exchanges belonged to Rapid as Stefan Schwab registered the first shots of the match (6., 13.), before Wöber had a shot cleared off the line (14.). Richard Strebinger was getting busier and busier in goal as the guests began to press an unfamiliar looking Rapid line-up, with the Green & White stopper making a good save in the 18th minute. Philipp Prosenik headed wide when well placed from a corner just minutes after Strebinger's save (20.), but fifteen minutes later he made no mistake as he slammed home a header from a Flo Kainz cross to give his side a deserved lead (35.). Despite good flowing football from Rapid in the remainder of the half no further goals were added.

The face of the game was change dramatically in the second period however. The substitute’s bench was again a hive of activity, as Albin Gashi and Ceyhun Tüccar from the reserve side got to rub shoulders with their colleagues from the first team. But not long after the re-start FAC had turned the game on its head, as they firstly equalised through Viertl (52.) before Entrup (54.) gave them the lead: Rapid had been stung twice in quick succession on the counter. The Green & Whites nearly found a response not long afterwards but Wöber's header just missed the far corner, with Mario Sonnleitner just unable to apply the telling touch (65.). At the other end FAC scored again to more or less seal the win - a win that might hopefully give them a boost in confidence having had a very difficult season up to this point (66.). Tüccar and Gashi worked hard throughout the second half of the match and nearly got themselves on the scoresheet (68., 82.) but ultimately Rapid failed to find a repost and went down to a 1:3 defeat.

Overview: Friendly Fixtures

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