Image: Joseph Moser
If Forward Steyr wants to win against the title aspirant from Linz, then everything has to fit. It didn’t do that on Friday night. Coach Daniel Madlener had to pretend to be Alberto Prada in advance, the defense chief was not yet fit to play after an injury. His team didn’t bring the strength they had gained from the friendlies – “We’re doing damn well,” said Madlener before kick-off – to the pitch. The red and white eleven, who had forbidden Madlener to wall, somehow lacked the right kick going forward, too many passes were imprecise and put the next man under pressure. After Linz’s early opening goal (Mensah, 5th), a forward eleven, which commendably didn’t hide, ran into the open knife of the blue and white favorites. An unnecessarily botched pass in the 37th minute – and Paul Mensah made it 2-0 in the turnover. Five minutes later, Tursch volleyed a defensive ball from Steyr on the edge of the penalty area, which, intentionally or unintentionally, made an arc over goalkeeper Nikolas Polster into the net. With the obvious thousand gulden shot at the 0:3 break deficit of the Steyrer, clear conditions prevailed on the Volksroad.
In the second half, Madlener was satisfied with the playful approaches with one or the other goal chance. It was only in the 73rd minute that he brought on Sivrikaya for Pellegrini in the first substitution, which may also be due to the sparsely occupied substitute bench due to illness. In the 83rd minute, Ronivaldo made the final score 0:4 on the display. “I didn’t see a four-goal difference,” said Madlener in his match record.
At home in the Ertl-Glas-Stadion, SKU Amstetten was 1:3 behind against Dornbirn in the 70th minute. But the Mostviertler equalized – with one man down (Goldnagl got a red card in the 76th minute for preventing a goal). Leimhofer scored in the 90th minute to make it 3:3.
Source: Nachrichten
