LASK stopped the negative series against Salzburg – after yesterday’s 0-0, nobody could really be happy about the first point after the last ten defeats. The chance of the championship group is gone before the end of the regular season in the Bundesliga on Sunday in Wolfsberg. The decisive factor was the yellow-red card for René Renner after an unnecessary foul in the 51st minute.
“It hurts, but I’m proud of how we held out against Salzburg with a man down for so long. Now we’re in seventh place – and then we’ll continue to play for the European Cup qualification,” said Sascha Horvath after the game. No question: If LASK had played like yesterday more often in the 20 rounds before – a place in the top six would have been safe for a long time.
The athletes not only struggled for their mini-chance for the master group, they also countered it playfully. In the best phase before the break, Thomas Goiginger placed inaccurately in front of the goal to Florian Flecker, who had run with him, instead of completing the shot himself (40th), goalkeeper Philipp Köhn fished Goiginger’s shot on the Kreuzeck (42nd).
After the postponement due to the Corona cluster, Andreas Ulmer, Maximilian Wöber, Mohamed Camara and Luka Sucic were still missing at Salzburg yesterday, and Oumar Solet was knocked out after 23 minutes. The failures hurt the Champions League round of 16 less than LASK’s absence of the sick Marko Raguz. Salzburg’s top scorer Karim Adeyemi played – and missed the only chance after a defensive error (32nd) before the break.
Controversial decisions
In the 51st minute, the already difficult task for LASK became even more complicated: Rene Renner gave referee Josef Spurny no other choice – and saw yellow-red. But LASK didn’t give up – and didn’t have VAR on their side in the final phase either. It was only after graduation that a penalty was not awarded when a Schmidt cross was deflected off the arm of Salzburg’s Samson Tijani (85′). After that, after a serious foul by Salzburg’s Capaldo on Michorl, it was yellow instead of red. LASK trainer Andreas Wieland: “I’m very satisfied with the performance, we showed the same mentality even when we were outnumbered. Now it’s certain that we won’t are in the championship group. We certainly didn’t lose our place in the top six in this game.”
Source: Nachrichten