Soccer: European Cup trials with room for improvement

At reigning champions Salzburg, coach Jesse Marsch’s expression was clouded several times in the first half of the clear 3-0 win over spusu SKN St. Pölten. Three days before the Champions League duel with Lok Moscow, the American sometimes lacked proper concentration. In the end, however, Marsch was as positive as his LASK colleagues Rapid and Wolfsberg.

Linz’s team lost nothing with a 3-0 win at SV Wörgl against a regional league team, as did Rapidler with a 5-1 win at 1. Wiener Neustädter SC. The WAC had many more problems, first having to catch up in the duel with Bundesliga promotion SV Guntamatic Ried and eventually winning 4: 3 after 2: 2 after 90 minutes and extra time on the stressful penalty shootout.

On Thursday night, the roles in the Europa League will be reversed. Rapid play at home in Group B against the traditional London Arsenal, like Linzer, who will play in Group J of the English capital against Tottenham, local rival of Arsenal, and will thus face another great caliber of the English Premier League. In Group K, WAC has a rival from the Russian capital in common with the Salzburg team. When the “policemen” who appear in the European Cup with FC Salzburg face Lok Moscow, the Carinthians have the former military club ZSKA as a guest in Klagenfurt.

Salzburg has things to talk about

Despite the sometimes clear successes in the second round of the Cup, European Cup holders hardly saw smiling faces. Albert Vallci, who led Salzburg to victory at St. Pölten, took Saturday’s dress rehearsal seriously. “We are further away, that was the goal. Of course there are things we still have to talk about, ”Vallci said. St. Pölten caused the favorites more trouble than they would have liked until half-time (0: 1) and shortly after. Due to individual errors in the defensive department, Salzburg invited Lower Austria once or another dangerously into their own penalty area.

Vallci, who benefited from an error by SKN goalkeeper Armin Gremsl when scoring his goal, called the performance in the first half of the match “naive”. Marsch saw that his team was acting “too freely.” The speech during the break should have been worth it. After the break, Salzburg showed the desired dominance against St. Pöltner, which was declining minute by minute after a long career. Patson Daka was denied a goal on several occasions, but defender Andre Ramalho was again happy to score zero. “We have always scored goals recently, game zero was very important before the Moscow game,” said the scorer of the final score.

In hindsight, it was not at all inconvenient for Salzburgs to warm up before the duel with Lok Moscow in the national cup competition against an unpleasant opponent. “After the international break, it was important that there be resistance,” coach Marsch said. The American did not want to make a comparison with the Russian runner-up. The games are “completely different,” Marsch noted.

Successful premieres in LASK and Rapid

LASK initially had an easy game in their 3-0 home win against Wörgl. The fact that the Tyrolean regional league team could wait until the very end (Linz’s number two and three goals only fell in injury time) was due to a more passive Linz. “Wörgl is to be commended, they did their job very well. However, it is clear that now we have to analyze the second half and see what we can do better, ”emphasized Johannes Eggestein. Werder Bremen’s loan scored in LASK’s first competitive match. As an assistant, Thomas Goiginger was able to await his return.

Marcel Ritzmaier’s debut in Rapid’s dress was even better than Eggestein’s. After less than two weeks of training together, the 27-year-old midfielder didn’t seem like a foreign body and capped off a good performance with a two-two. He first showed that Rapid now has an extremely dangerous free-throw shooter in his ranks, then he threw another shot after some good game action at the Kreuzeck as well.

Apart from the 1: 1 in the meantime and a 3: 1 oversight, which almost led to the next goal, Dietmar Kühbauer was able to draw a positive balance. The momentum of three consecutive victories in competitive games must now be carried to the duel with the “Gunners.” In terms of personnel, not much will change at the Hütteldorfer, as the Burgenlander had brought out his best line-up. The most prominent absentee was top scorer Taxiarchis Fountas, who returned to Vienna from the Greek national team late on Friday.

WAC acts “stupid”

The most bumpy dress rehearsal, albeit against a Bundesliga competitor, was conducted by the WAC, which performed well in the Europa League last season, notably in a 4-0 win at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Stefan Nutz had twice given the lead to the guests at Lavanttal Arena, Dominik Baumgartner (29th) and Michael Liendl with a penalty in the 81st minute prevented Carinthians from being left out in regulation time.

After a goalless extra time, Wolfsberger had the best finish for themselves against the promoted team from the penalty spot. Captain Liendl was upset at the inefficiency of the strongest playful hosts, which ultimately cost CSKA Moscow a lot of energy against the brave fighter Rieder regarding the task at hand: “I would have preferred we had done it after 90 minutes. But sadly, we were too stupid. “