TSV Hartberg, on the other hand, remains winless and goalless in game two under neo-coach Klaus Schmidt, but also without defeat. The Schmidt squad is only three points behind Altach at the bottom. LASK has now been without a win against Hartberg for five games. As leaders in the qualifying group, Linz have a two-point lead over SV Ried and Admira with 16 points.
Hartberg coach Schmidt wanted to act with a stronger defense against LASK, who were recently dangerous on goal, and offered Michael Steinwender, an additional, third central defender in a five-man chain. In addition to Dario Tadic, Seth Paintsil, who had not been considered recently, got another chance up front. At LASK, the sick coach Andreas Wieland was absent and was represented on the sidelines by assistant Rene Gartler, Alexander Schmidt stormed for Husein Balic.
After just 75 seconds, Linz appeared dangerously in front of Rene Swete’s goal for the first time: Keito Nakamura missed a Renner cross before Schmidt shot the ball past the Hartberg goal from close range. As a result, a balanced match developed with the guests having more possession of the ball, while the Styrians tried again and again to put pinpricks over the fast Paintsil. Scoring opportunities, however, remained scarce.
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fair division of points
Only in the 35th minute was LASK approaching a goal. Schmidt tried to finish a long ball, but Patrick Farkas cleared his deflected shot just before the goal line before Nakamura charged. On the other hand, Marvin Potzmann cleaned up a dangerous attack via Paintsil at the last moment.
The same picture emerged in the second section. The guests dominated the game without being able to unleash the scoring machinery of the last two games, when they netted ten times against WSG Tirol and Slavia Prague. At least defensively, TSV trainer Schmidt’s match plan worked. There was no great excitement in and between the penalty areas, Sascha Horvath tested Swete again from a distance in the 89th minute and he passed. So it ended up being a fair goalless division of points.
Source: Nachrichten
