Hartberg Heroics Deny Rapid

Matchday 14 of the ADMIRAL Bundesliga season tasked Rapid with an away trip to an in-form Hartberg side in eastern Styria. With the home team flying high in fourth place, the Green & Whites were looking to extend their decent form away from home, and close up towards the top end of the table with another three points on the road. Hartberg had proven to be a difficult opponent in recent seasons for Rapid, but in the Bundesliga meetings between the teams the advantage was mostly with the away side. Head Coach Zoran Barisic picked Marco Grüll, who scored in the last meeting at this venue a year ago, alongside Matthias Seidl and Nic Kühn in the attack, behind striker Guido Burgstaller.

Rapid, clad in their red away shirts, started well in the game, and from the first corner kick delivery Burgstaller got up highest to win a header, but his downward effort was well saved on the line by home keeper Sallinger (5’). At the other end, Hartberg’s Lang cut into the box with several defenders around him, and somehow found room to angle his shot just inside the far post with the home side’s first attack. 0-1 (6’). Roman Kerschbaum threatened to score an immediate leveler with a flick-on from Rapid’s next corner (7’), but after that came a phase where our players applied some pressure, and the hosts looked to break away on the counter when they could.

Kühn pounced on a loose pass, yet couldn’t quite thread it through to create a good chance (20’), before Burgstaller was brought down right on the edge of the box a few minutes later, only for Grüll’s free kick to be hammered into the wall (25’) as the boys in red continued to spend long spells in or around the Hartberg area. After a long time with no attacks, the hosts forced Niki Hedl to get down and push away a low cross (36’) before Lang struck a shot off target from outside the box (37’). The best chance to equalise before the break came to Burgstaller, but after fine work down the right from Seidl and Kühn led to a well-placed cross, his header was too close to Sallinger in goal (41’), so the score remained 1-0 at the interval.

Having dominated the shot count in the first half by 10 to 3, Seidl had the first effort on target after the break with an angled header (47’) and then a square ball right across the face of goal from Grüll somehow could not be forced in, before a beautiful chip from Burgstaller unluckily met only the post, and then bounced away to safety in a one-sided restart (49’). Kühn was the next to try his luck after a lovely lofted through ball into the box from Seidl, but his half volley flew just inches over the bar (52’). The huge contingent of traveling Rapid fans must have wondered how it was still 1-0.

That didn’t change when our number 9 was played in on the right side of the area, because when he pulled the trigger, a last-ditch defensive intervention plus a desperate fingertip save just pushed the ball into the side-netting (63’). Was it just not meant to be our day? Komposch headed over from a rare Hartberg ball into the box (67’) but Rapid were immediately back on the attack, as Burgstaller and Grgic kept the ball in the area for a long time before Kühn had a shot saved (70’).Sallinger then had to make a pair of even better saves to deny shots from an angle on either side, but as the shot count kept moving upwards, more and more chances went by, with another Burgstaller header eventually ending up over the top (85’).

As the final minutes ticked away, the chances began to finally dry up, and at the full-time whistle Rapid were left unbelievably frustrated. We had created enough chances to score five goals or more, but sometimes you just have to say congratulations to the opposing goalkeeper, and use the frustration for positivity next time. Heads up, Rapid.

 Fotos: GEPA