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The Europa League starter had to admit defeat to SKN St. Pölten 2: 4 (1: 3) in front of his own audience and is only ninth in the table. Those from Lower Austria, on the other hand, rose to second place at least until Sunday.
Dor Hugi (11th / penalty, 22nd), Lukas Grozurek (37th) and Christoph Halper (93rd) scored the invited goals. A double by Dejan Joveljic (15th, 48th) was not enough for the WAC.
The match started with more possession for the Carinthians, who went on the counterattack in the eleventh minute. Daniel Schütz was brought down by Sven Sprangler and Hugi used the penalty (11th).
The tie was already established four minutes later. SKN goalkeeper Christoph Riegler threw a cross from Christopher Wernitznig, Joveljic only had to head from a short distance. Hugi made a great appearance in the 22nd minute: the Israeli made Dominik Baumgartner and Wernitznig look bad and succeeded with a remarkable shot in the far corner.
A little later, the offensive player was replaced by a cut to his ankle, but his substitute also proved to be spot on: Grozurek headed a cross from Peter Pokorny. (37.). The Wolfsbergers, who were disappointing in the first half, came out of the booth as if they had transformed and cut back in the 48th minute. After a successful combination across multiple stations and a final pass from Michael Liendl, Joveljic pressed.
After that there was an urgent phase of the local population with partially torrential rain, but this did not bring anything. After a good hour, St. Pölten caught up with him and almost made the preliminary decision in the 66th minute, but Jonathan Scherzer blocked a shot from Grozurek off the line. The WAC was dangerous until the final whistle only with a header from Mario Leitgeb, who barely missed the goal (77), and conceded the fourth goal of a counterattack on Halper’s 93 after excellent preparatory work by Robert Ljubicic.
Coach Ferdinand Feldhofer’s team is now entering the three-week league break with just three points from four rounds. To make matters worse, the Wolfsbergers also had three injuries to complain about: Michael Novak was injured before the game started, Sprangler had to be replaced shortly before half-time and goalkeeper Manuel Kuttin was left in the locker room at half-time.
