Just in time for the hit of the 15th round of the Bundesliga on Sunday (5 p.m. / Sky) at Rapid, LASK is back in shape. After the unsuccessful start to the year against Wattens, Linz “licked blood” with a 3-0 win at WAC, as midfield director Peter Michorl emphasized on Friday. After the sovereign performance in Lavanttal, the Upper Austrians are only three points short of the Hütteldorfer, which they would overtake with a victory in Pasching.
“It will be a great challenge for us”, stated LASK coach Dominik Thalhammer. “Rapid mostly mirrors the opponents, so you need good solutions to neutralize these situations and gain advantages,” he analyzed. “But I think we have good ideas and we hope we have better ideas than in the last game.”
Tipico Bundesliga, 15th round:
Saturday:
Hartberg – Salzburg 0: 3
SCR Altach – Sturm Graz 2-1
Ried – Admira 0-0
Sunday:
Austria Wien – WSG Tirol 2.30 p.m.
St. Pölten – WAC 2.30 pm
LASK – Rapid Vienna 5.00 p.m.
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At the beginning of October LASK went down 3-0 in Hütteldorf, Rapid dominated over long stretches. “These individual mistakes, which we made against Rapid and now also against Wattens (2: 4 last Sunday, note), we must definitely not make,” demanded Thalhammer. He wants to build on the sovereign performance at the WAC. “That was tactically very disciplined, with proper swarming behavior and a high level of error tolerance. It was also extremely good physically with 60 percent more intense runs than against Wattens. That is our basis.” Michorl expects “a really exciting game. Both teams are in a good mood now.”
“We can’t buy anything from the balance sheet”
Rapid coach Dietmar Kühbauer was impressed by Linz’s performance against WAC: “That was the real LASK team.” He warned of a highly motivated opponent. “They finally want to hit us again, and we want to prevent that.” The last four duels of both teams all went to Rapid. “It’s a wonderful record, but we can’t buy anything from it,” said Kühbauer. One shouldn’t expect many playful highlights from the game. “It will be a two-way match, there won’t be too big a ball relay”, assumed Kühbauer. In the event of a win, the second Rapid would be six points ahead of the fourth LASK. (apa / red)
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