Disappointing start in season opener
The anticipation for the start of the 2021/22 Bundesliga season could hardly have been greater. The Green & Whites were able to build up self-confidence in their first two competitive games and that feeling was even amplified by the long-awaited return of Rapid fans to the stadium. For our home kick-off, we welcomed TSV Hartberg to Hütteldorf in the first round of the ADMIRAL Bundesliga. With little rotation in the selection of Head Coach Didi Kühbauer, in goal we had our number 1 Richard Strebinger, the four-man defence was formed by Stojkovic, captain Hofmann, Wimmer and Ullmann. In the defensive midfield, Grahovac replaced the still suspended Ljubicic alongside Petrovic. The attackers were Schick, Knasmüllner, Grüll and Kara up front.
To the game itself then, and early on, Schick capitalised on a mistake in Hartberg’s build-up play, but just as it looked like he could set things up for Knasmüllner, the final pass was lacking accuracy (4’). Petrovic broke through on the right flank and got into a good shooting position on the 16-yard line, but visting keeper Swete was able to parry his shot to safety (9’). The guests from East Styria were now playing more carefully in their build-up phase, but attacking bravely too, such as when Sturm came forward at full speed to get a shot away (20’).
Scoring chances were few and far between in the first half, but Rapid tried to find a recipe for success against the compact set up of Hartberg. Twice, we aimed the ball forward towards target-man Ercan Kara; on one occasion former Rapid stalwart Sonnleitner was there to clear, the next time though, he did get on the ball, but couldn’t get enough behind the ball. At that moment the game changed; another dangerous break forward for Hartberg, and then with a touch of fortune Tadic found himself in prime position for a shot on goal, and he took his chance, placing the ball into the corner at a solid pace. The shot left no chance for Strebinger, and thus Rapid trailed 1-0 at the break.
Clearly, we were under pressure in the second half. Taxi Fountas was brought on at the interval, and his big moment came quickly afterwards: he found the back of the net, but any chance to celebrate was immediately denied by the offside flag (46’). Grüll then caused a stir as his 35-yard free kick rocket was moving in the air, but Swete was there to defuse it. Despite our start, it was the visitors with the next chance, and what a chance it was for 2-0. Attacker Sturm rounded Strebinger, but then somehow conspired to miss the target from close range - a let off (52’)!
In comparison to the first 45, now the scoring chances were steadily increasing. Kara appeared to have levelled the scores briefly, but his free kick had actually ended up in the roof of the net rather than the back of the net (57’). Strebinger was then called upon to keep us in the game as he won a battle with Tadic (63’). The resulting corner was then cleared, before VAR pulled it back to penalise Wimmer after a close range ball had touched his hand. Tadic was reliable from the spot from the guests, and he gratefully accepted the gift to give Hartberg a 2-0 lead (68’).
Rapid kept going, and came close to reducing the deficit when Arase’s shot sailed inches wide of the goal, Grüll had a shot stopped from inside the box and Hofmann’s header was saved by the keeper (76’). Hartberg, on the other hand, had a goal ruled out for offside late on, but none of the closing chances changed the nature of the defeat. Unfortunately our first loss of the season came right away on day one - not the start to the campaign that we were looking for.
The loss was also compounded by the fact that Srdjan Grahovac had to leave the field with an injury - naturally we wish him all the best for a speedy recovery..
Fotos: GEPA