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SK Rapid have to admit defeat in KAA Gent’s UEFA Champions League third qualifying round. In a match in which the physicist opted in favor of the Belgians, the Rapid Kühbauer manager made two shocking general errors. The game can be safely described as “trained”.
Gent’s new coach, Wim De Decker, made minor changes, but with no particular surprises. It was clear that Yaremchuk would return to the team, but less so than the robust Laurent Depoitre would start as a room opener for Yaremchuk and Chakvetadze. In central defense, De Decker opted for his longtime protégé Dino Arslanagic and against the more experienced Igor Plastun. In goal, the coach continued to rely on Davy Roef, prone to errors, and decided against Sinan Bolat.
Triple axis and the extra portion of physicality in attack
Also at Dreifachschs, De Decker relied on the proven and brought in the Dorsch-Owusu-Kums trio, leaving the recovered captain Odjidja-Ofoe on the bench or later using him as a stabilizing joker. The variant with Chakvetadze as 10th and the single Yaremchuk as a forward in play was also a suspect option. After Chakvetadze’s injury-related substitution after an hour, Gent continued to play at 4-3-1-2, in which the automatics were also largely predictable, especially since Bezus instead of Chakvetadze was a pure change. position by position in this orientation. With the exception of the extra physique that Depoitre put into play, Ghent was in no way surprising.
Good start, but Ghent is stabilizing
Rapid knew in no time what awaited them. Early in the 3-4-1-2 system, the Viennese also had good chances and pushed Gent into their own field. It seemed that a game would develop on an equal footing, but with one fundamental difference: Rapid was hired and trained by Kühbauer as if there were a second leg …
Rapid’s own asymmetry causes problems
Both Maximilian Hofmann and Leo Greiml focused heavily on Depoitre and Yaremchuk over the course of the three-way chain system in the first hour, while Stojkovic swung further outward and “pulled” a lot of duels in the sideline region. Arase acted as a defender on the right wing and had a lot of runs to take advantage of. Murg, however, hit ten, but anticipated too little and positioned himself more as a target player on a similar level as Fountas or Kara. There were several cardinal errors in this pattern or in this ranking.
Gent’s path to midfield control
The chain of three acted asymmetrically, which Ghent repeatedly opened interfaces. The wobbling of the midfield did not fit or made it impossible to reflect the huge three-axis axis of the Belgians. Also, Owusu, the best man in the game, was virtually impossible to squeeze for long stretches. This would have been the task of the second urgent instance behind the approaching Kara, probably that of Fountas and Murg. While there were still some good ball wins early on, Gent gradually took control of the midfield, especially the physical one.
Arase positioning as the key of Ghent
Therefore, Rapid had no access to the headquarters. The biggest problem was asymmetry and the associated running effort. Ljubicic was too often placed in the “Leo”, Petrovic was the only one of six men who performed consistently in terms of positional accuracy, and Arase was given a task he simply couldn’t do on both sides, that is, on defense. and offensively – could solve well. The problems: Arase’s technical shortcomings, his physical inferiority to his direct opponents, and finally the fact that he is simply not suitable as a side defense, especially against such a physical opponent and in terms of defensive component.
The “offensive thinking defensive player” problem before 0: 1
Belgian runner-up Niklas Dorsch’s 1: 0 was the result of this problem. Here’s the scene from the game right in front of Sven Kums’ flank:
Greiml protects Depoitre, Hofmann occupies the headquarters, Stojkovic has to orient himself towards Yaremchuk (7). Ullmann also has his opponent Castro-Montes in sight and could easily put him in the worst case scenario. Due to limited access at the venue, Petrovic puts very little pressure on Kums and Ljubicic has two players behind him, the Belgians may allude to their mid-stop Depoitre.
Depoitre protects the ball against Greiml and attracts Ljubicic and Petrovic. Yaremchuk relies on Hofmann and evades the cover of Stojkovic, who, however, has turned his attention to a possible advance by Chakvetadze (10). This opens the gap for Dorsch (30) to walk, which Arase realizes too late. You can see here that Arase specifically observes the person in charge of the ball and scans his immediate surroundings very little.
The midfielders cannot prevent Depoitre from being downed, but this need not be problematic given the strong guidance of the man. However, Dorsch is now running and already has a decisive one meter lead over Arase, who is still targeting the ball carrier. Sven Kums’s center reaches perfection and Dorsch makes it 1-0.
I lost the moment of necessary change
It was a string of mistakes that probably wouldn’t have happened in a 4-2-3-1. Of course, there would have been other possible sources of error here, but there is a high probability that Dorsch, if he had, would have gotten into a duel with a regular defensive player. Given that Arase had already acted enormously error-prone, the time would have been here at the latest to change the system to a 4-2-3-1 and bring in strong Demir in place of Arase. This would have restored the starting lineup of Admira’s strong game. Up to this point, Kühbauer legitimately played in the basic order due to the 0-0 intermediate result, but that he still did after that, although Rapid was now swimming, it is just not understandable.
History of the creation of 911 as a consequence
After an hour, Chakvetadze’s advance resulted in a penalty for Gent. These advances from the young Georgian are not a surprise either. This has been seen over and over again in recent Ghent games. The main problem, however, was that despite the order book, Kühbauer did not change the basic order and let the weak Arase continue to play rather than provide the spirit of the bank.
Now it’s getting strange: Kühbauer changes the system, but nothing else changes …
Even after 0: 2, Kühbauer made no move to change anything personally. Rapid’s coach switched to 4-2-3-1, but the first change, Demir for Arase, only made it after 73 minutes, a good half hour late. The fact that Demir caused a stir, posed problems for the opposing defensive ranks with his technique and eventually even scored the late connection goal was almost announced. It seems to be a problem of “Austria exclusive Salzburg” that one does not want to “burn” the talent of the century, while in the best clubs they have increasingly younger opportunities. It is remiss that Demir, one of the greatest weapons in a five million game, has to keep watch until the 73rd minute as the inferior Arase increasingly struggled with himself.
Formation change too late, changes too late
Therefore, such an important and above all expensive single elimination game cannot be tackled. The rat tail that follows, for example, that the need for player sales has increased again, is just the tip of the iceberg. The biggest problem is the fact that you missed a great opportunity against an individually strong opponent, but tactically and as a team that is largely serious. Kühbauer was simply not surprised by Ghent’s approach: the appearance of the Belgians was too logical. However, he observed some parts of the team in the game permanently outnumbered, left weaker players on the field for too long and, for example, ripped Arase out of his basic playful-tactical corset and did him no favors. .
Miserable training for a million dollar game
After the game, some players said that Rapid was the best team. That definitely can’t be said across the board, because in terms of fighting strength and physique you certainly weren’t. Greiml’s lack of a penalty kick and his missed header opportunity with the last action of the game were also discussed later. Even that shouldn’t be a problem after such a game, Greiml’s personality was discussed too intensely in hindsight. Rather, as a spectator, one missed Kühbauer’s admission that his match plan completely failed on target and that this not exactly multi-faceted opponent was played completely poorly or that the in-game training was simply miserable. Holding on to the chain of three for too long and the latest personal adaptations broke Rapid’s neck against a beatable opponent …
Daniel Mandl, abseits.at
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