Rapid Finish the Season in Fourth Place

A stunning curler from Ferdy Druijf found the top corner in the second half of our final match of the season; Klagenfurt’s two goals were enough for them to win on the day, yet given other results Rapid held onto fourth spot and will therefore avoid the precarious play-off path to UEFA Europa Conference League Qualifying.

For the last fixture in the Championship Round of the 2022/23 ADMIRAL Bundesliga season, we faced Peter Pacult’s Austria Klagenfurt team away in the Wörthersee Stadium in Carinthia. Starting the day in fourth, we had fate in our own hands when it came to reaching the Conference League qualifying rounds without going through a domestic play-off. Unfortunately Nicolas Kühn had to miss out with an injury at late notice, Ante Bajic took his place in the team, as the Rapid XI went out looking to finish a difficult season at least on a positive note, by securing fourth in the table.

The opening phase in Carinthia kicked off in an intense manner, but it would take some time before the first real chances fell in either penalty area. With just over 10 minutes gone, Bajic picked out a nice pass for goalgetter Guido Burgstaller, however his dangerous strike was defused by the defence at the last moment (11’). At the other end, the hosts suddenly tested keeper Niki Hedl twice in succession, but he came up with two decent stops to keep the game level (13’), before Marco Grüll then got us back on the front foot in terms of offence. He did well to get into space down the wing, but ultimately his angled shot was too close to the Klagenfurt keeper (23’), before a Burgstaller header flew just off target (24’). Bajic then picked up the ball and created the best chance yet in the game, by skipping past a number of players in purple and into the area, before steering his finish narrowly past the post (29’). He continued his strong start to the match by placing another great ball through for Burgstaller, yet he was closed down in the box and unable to get a good shot on goal (33’). After 45 hard-fought minutes, the two teams would go in level at the break, with the game at 0-0.

The team came out unchanged for the second half, and soon after the restart Bajic flicked a pass with the laces through towards Moritz Oswald, only for him to be denied by the home stopper (48’). Klagenfurt then found a gap in our defence with a pass to Sinan Karweina, who dinked the ball over Hedl and in for 1-0 (59’). Zoran Barišić reacted quickly to the goal by bringing on Oliver Strunz, Patrick Greil and Ferdy Druijf (66’), and the move paid dividends. Grüll’s pass found Druijf outside the area, and our Dutch striker cut into the middle, before sweetly bending the ball right into the top corner of the Klagenfurt net (70’). A classy finish, and one which left neither keeper nor defender with any chance of stopping it.

Disappointingly, it was only 81 seconds later when a cross from the left wing was unfortunately turned into his own net by Michael Sollbauer (72’), putting the home side ahead again almost immediately. On came Berni Zimmermann und Martin Koscelnik in place of Marco Grüll and Thorsten Schick (who had made his 100th appearance) as the game became more open and end-to-end, yet Klagenfurt remained solid in defence, and left our team with no more real chances on goal. There was one late glimmer of hope when Koscelnik was bundled over in the area deep into stoppage time, but a VAR check confirmed that we would not get a penalty (90’+4) and the game came to an end at 2-1 to the home side.

With that, a challenging season has come to a close, and at least we have taken fourth place. Now it’s time for us all to recharge, train hard and get ready to give it everything next season. Thanks for your incredible support during this difficult season dear Rapid fans. We’ll come back stronger. LET’S GO RAPID!

Pictures: GEPA