Blau-Weiß Linz surprised series champions Red Bull Salzburg and inflicted their first defeat of the season on the league leaders. Striker Ronivaldo scored the gold goal for the Upper Austrians.
Blau-Weiß Linz prevails at Red Bull Salzburg. GEPA pictures
With the 1-0 (0-0) win against series champions Red Bull Salzburg has climbers Blue and White Linz on Saturday caused the biggest surprise of the current Bundesliga season. Goalgetter Ronivaldo (61st) brought a completely changed Bulls team back down to earth just three days after their Champions League triumph at Benfica Lisbon. This gives Sturm Graz the chance to climb to the top of the table with a win at Rapid on Sunday.
Salzburg series breaks
A week after the 2-2 draw with Sturm, Salzburg, who had won all their games up to that point, dropped points again and several series ended. For the first time in 45 home games, the Bulls left the pitch as losers; they had been unbeaten in the league for 37 games until Saturday. They hadn’t lost 13 home games against promoted teams. The Linz team, who were tactically well prepared and somewhat lucky in the first half, are now unbeaten in three games and are currently in ninth place thanks to their second win of the season.
Struber made use of the full squad depth, left nine of Lisbon’s starting eleven on the bench and gave the quartet Aleksa Terzic, Mads Bidstrup (wounded), Maurits Kjaergaard and Roko Simic a break. Luka Sucic, whose knee was operated on in March, started again for the first time in over six months. Nico Mantl was able to try his hand at goal for the first time since his loan from Denmark in the spring.
In this unusual formation, Salzburg needed around fifteen minutes of discovery, during which a failed attempt by BW striker Conor Noß fell from a good position (9th). But then Sekou Koita scored with a low shot just to the left (15′) and Dijon Kameri just past the goal to the right (17′) for the home team’s first shots. Sucic tested Nicolas Schmid from a distance (20th), Koita shot over the goal (27th) as did Dorgeles Nene from a good position just in front of the five-pointer (43rd). Schmid thwarted perhaps the best opportunity with a foot defense against Sucic (36th).
Disappointed hosts
At least Blue-White didn’t make things easy for the Bulls with well-timed defensive work and were able to create a few pinpricks with quick transitions. At the beginning of the second half, Noß had a great chance to take the lead after a bad pass from central defender Kamil Piatkowski, but missed the far corner by a good meter (52′). A little later, the German-Irishman almost became a tragic figure when he was first denied by Mantl (58th) and then aimed just over the crossbar. (59.).
The big favorites completely lacked their sovereignty in this phase and were 0-1 after another mistake by Piatkowski. The ball reached Ronivaldo via Noß, who delicately flicked the ball from the edge of the penalty area into the far corner.
Struber reacted with a four-way exchange, but a real counter-offensive from the completely disappointing hosts was a long time coming. Nene’s effort, which Schmid easily tamed (77′), didn’t look like anything more than a harmless attempt for a long time. In the finish, Schmid successfully defended the sensation against a Ratkov header (93′) and Linzer’s passionate defense.
2023-09-23 23:44:33
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