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Until moments before the final whistle on Sunday night at the Hartberger Profertil Arena, everything pointed to the entry of the locals into the championship group. St. Pölten defender Kofi Schulz abruptly ended the dream of a second top-six final in the Bundesliga en suite in the fourth minute of injury time with a 3: 3 tie. those in Eastern Styria were even more disappointed.
Given that WSG Tirol only played 1: 1 in parallel play against Rapid, Hartberg would have outscored with three points. The Hartbergers achieved four of their seven wins in the basic round in just the final seven laps. In the end, this streak started too late to buy the master group ticket.
After the international break, coach Markus Schopp now has time to get his team back on track. After the draw, the sadness spread, as did Captain Rene Swete. “That is, of course, very difficult to digest right now. The mood is at an all-time low,” said the goalkeeper. However, after an initial phase of disappointment, you must recover. “When this complete disappointment has subsided, we should go back to the agenda. It is not now that we have descended,” Swete added.
This was also followed by striker Sascha Horvath, who had given the Styrians hope with his goal to lead them 3-2. Now you have time to deal with the situation and then “we just have to look ahead.” TSV President Brigitte Annerl tried to highlight the positives: “It was a roller coaster of emotions. What I could see was a totally brave team that fought over and over again. At the end of the day, however, a lot was in the pipeline. against us “.
Coach Schopp congratulated the Tyrolese and took the constellation pragmatically. “When you have a way in which everything comes together after 22 laps, then on the one hand it is bitter that you have scored this goal just before the end, on the other hand it is a situation that we have to classify correctly,” emphasized the 47-year-old. . At Hartberg you don’t have to claim that you have to be in the top six per se.
The goal set before the season, that is, to stay up in the league, is still possible. The mere task of finishing this mission early now hasn’t worked, so Schopp. The starting position for the qualifying group is good as the Hartbergers will advance to the next round of the championship as leaders.
There it is a reunion with the spoiler St. Pölten. Those from Lower Austria, who had recently stumbled a bit, got back to taking something countable at the end of the basic round. But they also see room for improvement, as captain and goalkeeper Christoph Riegler said: “Hartberg was definitely stronger than us in the second half. But if you can see something positive, it is that the team has shown morale anyway and has achieved to match “.
