St. St. Pölten (from our rapporteur) – “I have conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I’m happy to advance to the quarterfinals, but we lost. After a strange course, when we led by two goals, but then we got three, plus two red cards, “Slavia coach Jindřich Trpišovský shook his head.
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With the exclusion of Ousou from the end of the first half, his team did very well. After a break, thanks to a goal, Sora bounced off his Austrian opponent by two goals. At ten o’clock, Linz did not stand a chance, he defended well. But after the exclusion of Plavšič in the 85th minute, things started to happen.
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The Praguers were forced to improvise on the lawn, the striker Tecl had to go to the left edge of the defense, the substitute stopper Kúdela in the position of defensive midfielder, and Talovjerov had a health problem. In the 87th minute, Gruber equalized to 3: 3, after which Schmidt completed the turn. From an angle, he unexpectedly passed the ball between the legs of goalkeeper Mandouse, who did not have his day. Although he took part in a successful kick at the first goal of Slavia, he waved his hands into the void at Wiesinger’s blow from a distance, thanks to which the home team reduced to 2: 3.
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Red card for Srdjan Plavsic.Photo: Florian Schroetter, CTK / AP
“At eight in the field, we could not use our game mechanics. We could not reach the players as we were used to. The conclusion was crazy. We prayed that it would be over, “said Trpišovský.
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The moment Schmidt turned the score to 4: 3, Linz had five more minutes to try to catch up with the three-goal shortfall from Eden. “I’m glad we kicked it. Going into overtime would be a problem, “said stopper Tomáš Holeš, who highly considers the third advance to the quarterfinals of one of the European Cups in the last four seasons.
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“It’s great that we are in the top eight in Europe again. Other quality matches await us, we gain valuable experience and great experiences. But I hope that this time the quarterfinals will not be final for us. We could finally break it and move on, “Holeš added.
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