Will May 24, 2025 be a day of celebration for SV Guntamatic Ried? This Saturday will be the 30th and final round of the 2024/2025 second division season. The road to the big goal of promotion to the Bundesliga will be hard and long. Ried want to take the first step this evening at the league opener in Vienna (Generali Arena) against Stripfing. The Innviertel team has been warned: last season they lost 1-0 to Stripfing in the third round, which was probably Ried’s weakest performance of the season.
A year has passed since then, and tonight, unlike in 2023, a well-rehearsed team will be on the pitch. Coach Maximilian Senft cannot rely on Philipp Pomer (corona), Alexander Mankowski (ankle) and Wilfried Eza (splintered heel bone). The cup game against the Vorarlberg regional league club Röthis on Sunday was a thoroughly convincing trial run: 11:0 was on the scoreboard after the final whistle. “This game is not very meaningful, but it was positive that we played our game from start to finish. Despite a very clear lead, we did not let up,” says Wolfgang Fiala, SV Ried’s sports director, in a detailed OÖN interview before the league kick-off.
OÖN: How was the preparation?
Wolfgang Fiala: Very intense, there was no time for the players to stay in their “comfort zone”. We trained very intensively, there was no luxury. We completed several team-building units. For example, we cycled to Schärding, where we traveled on the Inn in rubber dinghies, spent the night in tents provided by the Federal Army, which we had to put up ourselves, and had a campfire together. The team pulled together fully in the preparations, but that is also the basic requirement for us in the sports management. As the saying goes: if you don’t want to ride in our train compartment, you are free to get off. But I don’t see this danger with our players, quite the opposite: everyone pulls together fully, the chemistry is right.
How important is a good start to the season?
The championship will not be decided in two or three rounds, but of course we will do everything in our power to start the championship with victories so that we can then take advantage of the tailwind.
How are the preparations going for today’s league opener in Vienna against Stripfing?
We will not arrive until the day of the game. Departure is at nine o’clock. Then we will check in at the day hotel and complete a short activation session. After lunch, the team and coaching staff will have the opportunity to relax in the hotel before taking the bus to the stadium after a meeting. After quite a long preparation, we are all looking forward to the start of the league.
How big is the pressure? A year ago, Ried announced a “two-year plan” with the goal of promotion.
That’s part of it. You can’t play in the second division with SV Ried and say: “Let’s see what happens.” The goal is clear: we want to get promoted to the Bundesliga. To do that, a lot of things have to come together in a 16-team league in which only one team gets promoted. We need a very good season, we can control that, we want to be at 100 percent. There are also things that we can’t control, like how our opponents perform. In general, though, I believe that a lot of things are going in the right direction at the club again. We’ve done a good job of building up our youth team in recent years, and our squad situation is such that we could sell one or two players for good money.
Speaking of player sales: Arjan Malic left the club for Sturm Graz for more than half a million euros. WAC is said to have offered a similar amount of money for Fabian Wohlmuth. What is the current situation here?
Interest may have cooled off a little. But we have already stressed it: Fabian Wohlmuth is a young, strong and very important player for us, and we will not sell him cheaply. It is also clear that the price will not get cheaper towards the end of the transfer window – at the end of August – but rather the opposite.
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Image: GEPA pictures/ Christian Moser
Source: Nachrichten
