Before coach Gerald Scheiblehner’s team heads home tomorrow, his team lost 2-3 in today’s final test against Polish first division team Gornik Zabrze.
Nevertheless, Blue and White can leave the Turkish side with a good feeling: Not only the strong performance over long stretches of the game against the club of Germany’s world champion Lukas Podolski gave the Linz team a boost, in the 72nd minute striker Ronivaldo also made his long-awaited comeback .
Blue-White even took the lead twice through Paul Mensah (16th) and Mehmet Ibrahimi (62nd), but made the opponent unnecessarily strong in the finish: BW goalie Kevin Radulovic didn’t have his best day and took two penalties. First, the 21-year-old had impetuously knocked a Polish opponent off his feet as he ran out (60′), and on the second penalty he slipped and was only able to help himself with a foul.
In the 88th minute, Linz completely lost the game by conceding a goal from a standard situation.
Author
Raphael Watzinger
Sports editor
Raphael Watzinger