Long list of injuries at the start of the Bundesliga: Salzburg will still survive at Rapid
The worry lines are getting bigger: At the start of spring in the Austrian Bundesliga, the list of injuries at FC Red Bull Salzburg is getting longer and longer. At the start of 2022, the classic at SK Rapid Vienna is on the program on Friday, February 11, from 7:30 p.m. But the Hütteldorfer are anything but in a good mood: At the start of the year in the ÖFB Cup, there was a surprising 1:2 home defeat against TSV Hartberg, the record champions are fifth in the league and are already 21 points behind the Mozartstadters.
Striker Benjamin Sesko has joined Salzburg’s long-term absentees Zlatko Junuzovic (heel), Bernardo, Sekou Koita, Bryan Okoh and Nicolas Seiwald (back in team training), all of whom are suffering from knee problems. The Slovenian has been in top form lately: he scored seven friendlies in four matches, plus half the 1-1 scored as an own goal in the 3-1 win against Linz in the quarter-finals of the cup. The 18-year-old tore a muscle fiber in his thigh just before the break. Jerome Onguene has only been back in Salzburg since Thursday after winning third place with Cameroon at the Africa Cup of Nations.
The Red Bulls are unbeaten in nine games against the Green-Whites and have always scored more than one goal. They even lost just one of the last 22 duels with Rapid, 0: 2 in February 2019. The Viennese have scored 16 points in the last nine games after only half as many in the first nine games.
“It was important to get the new year off to a good start by winning the cup. Now we’re happy that the league is also starting with a real bang. And even if Rapid was eliminated from the cup: the team did well in the fall stabilized significantly and only lost one of the last nine games in the league. We have also been warned,” said Salzburg coach Matthias Jaissle. February was a tough one for him and his team: after LASK, Rapid followed today, then Bayern in the Champions League round of 16 (Wednesday, February 16, 9 p.m./first leg in the city of Mozart), four days later the top game against the current second-placed Wolfsberger AC is coming up. − bitYou can read more about the start of the Bundesliga in Austria in the PNP print edition from Friday, February 11, 2022 – including in the Reichenhaller Tagblatt, Freilassinger Anzeiger, Burghauser Anzeiger and the Südwestbayerische Rundschau.