Salzburg is “ready” for the Champions League
After the 3-1 win in the ÖFB Cup quarter-finals against LASK, the spring season start in the Bundesliga was successful for a league leader Red Bull Salzburg with a 2-1 away win in Vienna at SK Rapid. Despite being behind at the break, the Mozartstadters didn’t let themselves be thrown off track and recharged important motivation for the upcoming Champions League round of 16.
Matthias Jaissle and his team recharge their batteries with positive energy.
GEORG HOCHMUTH, APA
Table leaders Red Bull Salzburg beat “favorite opponents” Rapid Vienna 2-1 despite being behind at the break and are likely to have important motivation for the upcoming Champions League round of 16 against Bayern Munich. After the successful start of spring in the ÖFB Cup quarter-finals, head coach Matthias Jaissle’s team is now expecting the start in the final rounds of the regular season and became their favorites against the Viennese, who have now been defeated in the sixth competitive game in a row, at least was able to do justice again from the second half. “In the second half it was really good again, we concentrated on doing our thing, showed dominance and won. That is not a matter of course with such a young squad,” said Jaissle in the “Sky” interview after the game.
Bundesliga – 19th matchday
As in the cup game against LASK, Salzburg had to run after them again and clearly had problems with the opponent’s fighting and defensive style of play in the first 45 minutes. They even took the lead at first, but Rasmus Kristensen’s goal was reversed by VAR after teammate Brenden Aaronson was ruled offside. “We got into the game really well, took a 1-0 lead, that was denied and in return Rapid seemed to make it 0-1 out of a set piece. We were headless and lost the structure on the pitch,” says Jaissle Coordination problems with his team.
Salzburg dominant in numbers
That can already be expected in the second half, where Salzburg turned the game around with two goals from Aaronson (64th) and Okafor (77th) and is expected to gather positive energy for the upcoming Champions League round of 16 against the German record champions Bayern Munich could. “We’re ‘ready’ for the game on Wednesday,” said Okafor, the winning goalscorer. “I’m happy about the win, a huge compliment to the whole team. We knew it wouldn’t be easy In the second half I decided to play aggressively and create more chances and I think we did it. We got through the game well.” In addition, Nicolas Seiwald celebrated his comeback on the field after his meniscus injury.
With 68.7 to 31.3 percent possession of the ball, Salzburg had the game clearly under control over the 90 minutes, and the Mozartstadt team was also clearly ahead in terms of the pass rate with 71.4 against 38.2 percent of the Viennese. Offensively, Hütteldorfer also owed a lot, apart from Stojkovic’s opening goal, the Green-Whites didn’t manage another shot on the goal of Salzburg’s competitor, who was able to check rapid goalie Gartler at least four times. “We had an unfortunate run of the game and didn’t find it easy for ourselves in the first half, but we dominated the game for long periods and I’m happy when we went under. We came from behind and that’s good for morale and gives positive energy for Wednesday.” , said sports director Christoph Freund.