Kara nets a brace as we cruise past Hartberg

Our final home game of the regular season saw Rapid take on Hartberg, with both teams looking to maintain their good form. With four wins and a draw from their last five games, Hartberg not only led the Bundesliga form table going into this game, but they had propelled themselves into the top six and wanted to stay there at all costs. Rapid sought three points to close out the home campaign well before the Championship Round, and also to end the visitors’ unbeaten run at the Allianz Stadium. We were awaiting a challenging and highly motivated opponent, but perhaps also goals, given that 22 in total had been scored in the previous four corresponding Bundesliga fixtures.

For the challenge ahead, Coach Didi Kühbauer opted for a familiar 4-2-3-1 with Thorsten Schick, Taxi Fountas and Marcel Ritzmaier as the attacking three in behind lone striker Ercan Kara. The two sides cancelled each other out in the midfield early on, and although Fountas registered the first shot, a pass might have been a better option (4’). Long balls were the guests’ modus operandi, and one direct lob over the defence brought Richi Strebinger rushing out of his area to stop Rep, before the loose ball was lofted wide by Horvath (14’). At the other end it was Fountas who responded for Rapid, and Hartberg had a lucky escape when his cross from right on the bye line somehow ricocheted back off the far post and into the hands of keeper Swete (15’).

It took ten minutes until the Green and Whites created the next dangerous moment; the ball was fed across the area from the left with crisp passes, before Ritzmaier laid-off for Maxi Ullmann who was on a trademark run into the area, and his stinging shot had to be turned around the post (25’). Another ten minutes of relatively harmless crosses went by, but with Rapid beginning to control the game, they soon struck. A through ball from Filip Stojkovic found just the right gap in the Hartberg defence, and Kara strode through, calmly rounded Swete and slotted in from the angle for 1-0 (34’)!

Hartberg, who had been absent in attack for a while, attempted to draw level through another high ball forward; Rep was on the end of this one, bringing it down with a hint of handball, but he stayed alert to get his shot away and draw a fine block from the body of Strebinger (37’). With that strong save preserving the lead, the teams went in at half-time with Kara’s goal the difference.

Just four minutes into the second half, and Kara himself had doubled the lead! It was a deflected shot from Fountas that fell into the path of our number 29, and he made no mistake, taking his time in the box to pick his spot and fire low past Swete (49’). Rapid refused to let go of the reins and registered two more shots in quick succession, from Kara again (50’) and from captain Dejan Ljubicic (51’), drawing two saves from Swete before the game settled.

The guests were not about to give up, and a whipped-in cross met the head of Tadic at the far post; his placed effort forced a fantastic save from Strebinger (56’) but it wasn’t enough to reduce Rapid’s two-goal cushion. Our first switch saw Christoph Knasmüllner come on for Fountas, and unfortunately Ritzmaier went off with a knock a little later - Yusuf Demir coming on in his stead. It was Demir himself who cleverly took advantage of a defensive lapse to get our next shot away, only for Swete to recover and make the stop (65’).

With the home side now firmly in the driving seat, we wanted a third goal to kill off the contest. Kara should have had his hat-trick but instead saw his shot saved from close range (68’), yet our scorer turned provider just seconds later, fizzing a low cross from the right to pick out Knasmüllner for a tap-in and a 3-0 lead (69’)! That afforded Coach Kühbauer the luxury of resting Kara, Ljubicic and Schick (replaced by Deni Alar, Kelvin Arase and Srdjan Grahovac) for the Rapid Quarter-Hour.

Despite an accomplished attacking performance taking the plaudits, the defence had done their job well too, exemplified by Mateo Barac who went full pelt to get back and slide the ball to safety after Tadic had gone past Strebinger and rolled his shot towards the open goal (78’). Up at the other end Demir then threaded a pass through to Alar who missed by inches (84’) but he wouldn’t have to wait much longer for his first Bundesliga goal since April 2019. Max Hofmann bravely blocked a powerful shot from Horvath to maintain our clean sheet, and the Rapid counter-attack was executed to perfection as Knasmüllner’s pass found Alar who squeezed a shot under the keeper for 4-0 (88’)!

One small sour note was a fifth yellow card of the season for Stojkovic who will miss the trip to Innsbruck next week, but other than that, we closed out the regular season in style at home with a fully deserved win which could perhaps have been even higher. RAPID!

Fotos: GEPA

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