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“Our goal is to score all three points,” said coach Dietmar Kühbauer. At the same time, the 49-year-old from Burgenland cautioned against taking lightly the opponent, who had trembled to stay up in the league until the final round. Kühbauer also praised two former Rapid scorers who now play for the Südstadt team: Stefan “Major” Maierhofer and Erwin “Jimmy” Hoffer: “Admira has good players up front with Major and Jimmy, we must not underestimate them.”
Especially with crosses, it is important to be aware of the strength of the head of the 2.02 meter high Maierhofer. “We can assume that the high balls will go into the penalty area, and you can’t always defend the older one,” says Kühbauer. “Admira also has other good players. So we shouldn’t think we can get away with it, period, one, two, three, that won’t work. “
Admira meets Rapid
At the start of the Bundesliga, Admira has to face a difficult ride to Rapid. Tomorrow’s game will be very special for two fans: Erwin “Jimmy” Hoffer and Stefan Maierhofer, who once formed a legendary forward duo at Rapid, will now find their old love as opponents.
“Admira can play without worries”
Furthermore, unlike Hütteldorfer, the guests “really had little to lose at the Allianz Stadium. In truth, Admira can only surprise. This means that they can really play without worry, ”explained Kühbauer. “Of course they want to beat us, we know that. It’s about our personal approach to how we enter the game. We are rated higher in terms of quality, and you should see that in the field. We have to accept this role of favorites ”, demanded the ex-ÖFB-Internationale,“ passion and a mentality that leads us to win ”.
Despite qualifying for the Champions League on Tuesday night in Gent, he will also have the strongest team. “It would be bad if someone said that they are too tired. Then he has to change his sport ”, Kühbauer decidedly ruled out that he could rotate at the beginning of the season.
Admira have recently been a welcome opponent for Rapidler, who have already celebrated 151 victories (club record) against Südstädter in 277 competitive matches. The last seven Bundesliga games between seasons against Lower Austria have been won, four of them at home. And five times the Verdiblancos stayed clean, while scoring a total of 24 goals.
Typical Bundesliga, 1st round
Friday, 6.30 pm:
Possible configurations:
Fast – Admire
Allianz Stadium, SR Jäger
Quick: Strebinger – Stojkovic, Hofmann, Greiml – Arase, Murg, Petrovic, D. Ljubicic, Ullmann – Kara, Fountas
To admire: Leitner – Malicsek, Aiwu, Bauer, Lukacevic – Tomic, Kerschbaum – Saracevic, Hoffer, Cirkovic – Maierhofer
Maierhofer extremely motivated
Admira now wants to break this series of successes, especially Maierhofer is motivated to the ends of his hair against his ex-club. “I want to win tomorrow,” said the 38-year-old veteran who scored his first Bundesliga goal on 2 March 2008 in Rapid’s 2-0 away win against Sturm Graz.
Soldo relies on a “good mix”
Admira coach Zvonimir Soldo announced Thursday that he will likely bet on the former Rapid Storm in the opening match. “Stefan can help us a lot. Now we have a good mix of young and experienced players, ”the 52-year-old Croatian said of his team, which has changed a lot due to the many departures and additions in the summer. And Admira could also play in the cards for the match in Gent, according to Soldo: “I hope the Rapid players with their thoughts are already in Belgium.”
After the last tough battle until the last game to stay in the Bundesliga, Admira now looks forward to a season without relegation worries, if possible.
