2:2 – points shared between Austria Vienna and LASK

In front of 10,601 spectators in the Generali Arena, the “Violets” missed a 2-0 lead, in the end it was 2-2 (0-0). It was already the third draw in the third duel of the season between the two clubs. The Linz team defended their third place in the table and with 20 points still have a three-point lead over the “Violets” (17).

Austria coach Michael Wimmer made only one change compared to the 2-0 derby success: Ranftl returned to the starting eleven after serving a yellow card suspension for Matteo Meisl. There were three changes for the guests: Alexander Schlager was back in goal, Peter Michorl and Marin Ljubicic were given preference by coach Dietmar Kühbauer instead of Maksym Talowjerow and Ibrahim Mustapha.

In wet and cold conditions, the Upper Austrians took the initiative. Right from the first consistently carried out attack, Ljubicic netted from a short distance and from a suspected offside position after a presentation by Rene Renner (5th). The VAR needed four minutes to resolve the situation and correctly deny the goal. In the 16th minute, Ljubicic shot past the goal after Michorl-Corner.

Dangerous from a distance

The “Violets” were initially only dangerous from a distance in the person of Dominik Fitz (20th) and Lukas Mühl (22nd). LASK had bad luck when Robert Zulj only hit the inside bar from a distance of more than 20 m (26th). A hit by Nakamura with a header (30th) was again disallowed for offside. There was excitement just before half-time when referee Alexander Harkam left it at a warning for both of them after a private feud between Aleksandar Jukic and Moses Usor.

The second half initially went without major highlights – up to the 58th minute: After a Fitz corner and a header from Linz, Braunöder volleyed from the left from 17 m, the ball hit Schlager unstoppably – a dream goal for the 21-year-old. The Austrians immediately followed suit. After a bad pass from Filip Stojkovic in his own half, Ranftl made it 2-0 against his former club, also from a distance.

In order to set new offensive accents, Kühbauer exchanged Ljubicic and brought in Mustapha. And indeed, the guests got the right answer: After a tee shot, the ball got to Nakamura, who dribbled into the penalty area and shot into the far corner, leaving Christian Früchtl behind (73′). It was the twelfth goal of the season for the Japanese. In the finish, the Kühbauer squad pushed for the equalizer and were rewarded. A Renner cross landed at substitute Flecker, who secured a point for the Upper Austrians with his head.

In the next round, Austria will travel to Salzburg next Sunday to the defending champion and table leader. LASK, on ​​the other hand, is facing a special English week: On Thursday, the athletes will compete in the ÖFB Cup semi-finals at Sturm Graz (8.30 p.m. / live ORF 1), three days later (Sunday, 5 p.m. / live Sky) it will be in the Liga to repeat this duel, this time in Linz.

First reactions to the game

“If you score an equalizer just before the end of the game, you have to be happy. But I’m not happy because we had five minutes where Austria took a 2-0 lead. Otherwise we were superior most of the time. They have two Had a thousand guilder shots, the first one was unbelievable. After that we were back on the trigger and deserved to equalize. Nevertheless, it’s a shame that we didn’t win. It would have been absolutely fine,” says LASK coach Dietmar Kuhbauer.

Austria coach Michael Wimmer: “We got into the game extremely badly. We weren’t present for the first 35 minutes and didn’t have access to the LASK game. We were lucky with two offside decisions. After half-time we did well, had a lot of ball wins. We took the lead with two dream goals, but then behaved badly to make it 2-1. That wasn’t tactically clever. In the end we didn’t do well, we were outnumbered in the box and still got the 2-2. In the end it’s a fair draw because of the second half.”