Championship Round Opens with Defeat to Salzburg

On Sunday afternoon, the final ten games of the season got going, as Rapid kicked-off the Championship Group in the ADMIRAL Bundesliga with a home game against Salzburg. Robert Klauß’s team have some good memories of recent match-ups, with Rapid unbeaten in the last four meeting with the Red Bulls, and the Green & Whites wanted to extend that record with important points on the line in the group.

Due to a ban preventing Block West from being full for the game, the match took place in front of an unusually low crowd, but the Green & White team spirit was evident throughout the stadium. The fans who were there drove our team forward, Nenad Cvetković had a good header following a corner, but a defender cleared it off the line (6'). On the counter-attack, Niki Hedl held his nerve in a duel with a Salzburg attacker and kept the scores at 0-0 with a big one-on-one stop (10'). There was no real flow to the game in the first half-hour and the momentum was disrupted by numerous fouls, but in the 35th minute, captain Matthias Seidl had the best chance to open the scoring, yet he was denied by the keeper after his shot was too central. Salzburg, on the other hand, found their first chance two minutes later and proved more efficient, 0-1 (37'). The goal should have been a wake-up call for Rapid, but apart from a shot from Bendi Bolla which sailed over the crossbar (39‘), a low attempt from Matti Seidl (43’) and a Beljo header just wide of the post, there weren’t quite enough good ideas to get the team back on terms, and so we went in 1-0 down at the break.

We got started for the second half in the worst possible way, and after a quick foray forward by Salzburg, the guests soon increased the lead to 2-0 with a header (48'). Head coach Robert Klauß reacted and brought on Noah Bischof in place of Matthias Seidl to add fresh energy to the offence (57'), but the game was still in Salzburg's hands. We chased hard to try and narrow the deficit, yet failed to really create any big chances. A triple substitution followed, with Andrija Radulović, Ercan Kara and Moritz Oswald replacing Louis Schaub, Dion Beljo and Lukas Grgić (69'). However, Lukas Grgić was briefly treated after taking a knock just before his substitution, and what followed was a major misunderstanding, so when the referee waved him back on, he should have actually stayed off the pitch, and the referee then showed our number 8 a second yellow card in very strange circumstances indeed (72’).

 As a result, the game became even tougher, and scoring chances could still be counted on one hand. Noah Bischof had a go with a header seconds before the final whistle, but failed to beat the Salzburg goalkeeper (90’+7). Unfortunately, even eight minutes of stoppage time were ultimately unable to help us change the result.

 The final painful statistic is that we couldn’t take any points, and instead we started the Championship Group with a 2-0 defeat.

Fotos: GEPA