SV Ried has experts for spectacular comebacks

The billing takes place at the end. SV Guntamatic Ried is also relying on this motto before today’s start of the spring season of the 2nd football league against FAC Vienna (8.30 p.m., Innviertel Arena; live ORF Sport +). Despite being eight points behind league leaders GAK, the Vikings want to make a big comeback in the second half of the season. A Rieder knows very well that it is possible: With goalkeeper coach Hubert Auer, the Innviertel team has a real expert for a spectacular comeback in their own ranks.

• Also read: This is how SV Ried wants to achieve the impossible

In the 2012/2013 season, the Carinthian native achieved something historic for the then second division club Grödig in the spring: at the halfway point of the season, Salzburg were still nine points behind autumn champions Lustenau – thanks to a brilliant second round of the season, coach Adi Hütter’s team was still at the top in the end, and even rose moved into the upper house with a ten-point lead over second-placed Altach and 14 points ahead of half-time leader Lustenau.

Since the introduction of the three-point rule, only Grödig has managed to catch up with such a large half-time deficit. Auer sees parallels to Ried: “I was the second goalie and goalie coach in Grödig at the time, so I was also somewhat involved in the coaching history. When Adi Hütter took over at the beginning of this season, there was also a real upheaval in Grödig. The goal was of At the beginning of the promotion, but similar to this season at Ried, it was a bit slow at first. But we always had our goal in mind.”

A special image in your head

Hütter has repeatedly instilled this goal in his team. Auer remembers it very clearly: “We did a lot of visualization during team building sessions back then – among other things, each player had to create an image of what they would think about at the moment of promotion. We visualized this image before every game.” For the now 42-year-old, it had to do with his son: “My son was still very small and had never seen any of my games live. I imagined that if we were promoted to the Bundesliga, I would be in Ried ( Note: The Innviertler were in the upper house at the time, Auer lived with his family in Ried). That would have happened anyway: After winning the second division championship with Grödig, Auer returned to Ried in the summer of 2013 and has been working as a goalie coach in the Innviertel ever since.

The goalkeeper also remembers an anecdote about their then promotion rivals Lustenau: “In a direct duel with Grödig, Lustenau played substitute goalkeeper because their regular goalkeeper was injured. The then Lustenau president Hubert Nagl was always considered to be happy to save money. To save money, you have to She decided not to take a second goalie with her in this game.” Curious: In this game of all places, Vorarlberg’s goalkeeper was excluded – a field player, Christoph Stückler, had to go into the goal. He even saved a penalty, but also made a mistake when conceding the decisive goal in the 0-1 defeat.

Brother-in-law of the GAK trainer

In a remarkable second half of the season, Grödig celebrated 13 wins in 18 games and only suffered two defeats. Auer also believes that SV Ried can do that, especially since GAK definitely feels Rieder’s backing, as Auer knows from personal experience: He comes from the same place in Carinthia as GAK coach Gernot Messner, who is even his brother-in-law: “When we are in Carinthia “We share a house. We also spent Christmas together. They had an outstanding autumn, but I see us as having a broader base. If they get into a tight phase, it can be fun. We believe in it.”

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