[ad_1]
At Wolfsberger AC, Marco Meilinger secures Altach’s fourth win of the season with his first goal of the season.
Wolfsberg It was November 11, 2016 when then-Altach coach Damir Canadi was hunted down and transferred to Rapid Vienna. Almost four and a half years have passed since then, and after more stops in Nuremberg and Athens, his path now led him back to the Rheindorf. And so, the successor of Alex Pastoor played yesterday Sunday the first game of his second term in the Altach coaches bench, at Wolfsberger AC. After only four training sessions, as he told the “Vorarlberger Nachrichten” at the end of the match: “Everything happened very quickly, I tried to organize the team and give them confidence in themselves”. This seems to have worked, against WAC Altach got the first win in four games: “These three points are good for us.”
A first change under the new coach could already be seen before the game: the 50-year-old rotated a lot compared to the 1: 5 in Wiener Austria and offered five new players. Among other things, Nosa Edokpolor and Manuel Thurnwald were on the defensive after Emir Karic was suspended and Oum Gouet took over the wing in midfield.
Quick change kit as a recipe
The tactical orientation of the guests could also be seen from the beginning: the goal was to stay low and take advantage of every moment of change that occurred. The first should work very well for the full 90 minutes, the coach also agreed: “We won this game on defense, we were very disciplined on defense, we closed the rooms well.”
On the other hand, there weren’t too many offensive highlights to record at the same time, also due to the Lavanttaler’s playful strength. Canadi was clear that this would be the case before the game: “We knew that Wolfsberg would play more. We have put our strength mainly on defensive stability. “
Altach’s only shot on goal in the first half came from Manfred Fischer (13th), before he missed the ball after a cross (6th). Furthermore, Manuel Thurnwald’s promising free kick did not find its way into Wolfsberg’s Alexander Kofler area (ninth).
On the other hand, the WAC found its way through Altach’s defense more frequently. SCRA goalkeeper Martin Kobras had chances from Dejan Joveljic (17th) and Thorsten Röcher, who made perfect use of a cross and undoubtedly had the best chance of the first half (44th), but without problems.
Surprising gateway to happiness
The game played out in a similar fashion after the restart, and the replacement of Thuringian midfielder Michael Liendl by WAC made no difference. The two offensive departments were for the most part too unimaginative, especially when it came to seizing opportunities.
An exception to this was the situation in the 57th minute. A ball win in midfield landed through Fischer and Edokpolor on Emanuel Schreiner. Marco Meilinger ran into the penalty area at the perfect moment, was able to use Schreiner’s cross and practically shoot out of nowhere to make it 1-0 for Altach.
Meilinger’s first goal since April 20, 2019, at which time the Salzburg man had scored against Rapid Vienna, also meant the winning goal for the Rheindörflers. Canadi congratulated his team on this goal: “I think we took this situation to a great 1-0 final, this goal was played wonderfully.”
Thanks to this surprising success, the Rheindörflers can give up the red lantern on the table: they are two points ahead of Admira in eleven. The rest of the program in the regular season is just a little easier: in the next three games, the Canadi-Elf will face LASK (third in the table, 0: 3 in the first leg), St. Pölten (ninth , 0: 4) and SV Ried (10th place)., 4: 1). The excitement is guaranteed by the split points after 22 games.
“The key to success was definitely the defense. The goal was to play zero. “
“It wasn’t very easy, but we did a good team performance.”
