2023-07-30 18:57:00
For the first time since the 2019/20 season (3-0 once morest St. Pölten), Sturm Graz managed to win the opening game and stormed straight to the top of the table. LASK is the opponent next Saturday.
Two newcomers made their debut with Graz: As expected, young striker Wlodarczyk was in the starting eleven alongside Dutch goalie Kjell Scherpen. Sturm picked up speed right from the start, Austria’s goalkeeper Christian Früchtl helped with the lead: he let a shot by Jusuf Gazibegovic from the edge of the penalty area into the near corner – 1:0 (9th).
From then on, the German goalkeeper looked insecure. After an unsuccessful excursion near the goal line, he corrected a mistake made by Wlodarczyk himself (16th). After 20 minutes, the Polish U21 team forward scored for the first time on his debut, bHowever, the 20-year-old was clearly offside when Otar Kiteishvili played through the hole.
Austria sought their salvation in speed counterattacks, but did not shake the defensively convincing Styrians. On the contrary: Sturm brought the high number of strokes more precisely onto the field. The playful Manprit Sarkaria served Kiteishvili, the Georgian’s shot was just deflected to a corner.
Austria was down to ten following the 33rd minute. Marvin Martins stopped Alexander Prass, who broke through, with a high leg. Referee Stefan Ebner watched the horror foul on TV – and converted the yellow card into a red card. Prass initially remained on the pitch with a wound on his face, but was able to continue and was unlucky with a crossbar hit before the break (40′).
Wlodarczyk introduced himself with a goal
At this point it was already 2-0: After a corner from Sarkaria, Wlodarczyk headed relatively unchallenged into the orphaned far corner (38th). Austria dragged themselves into the dressing room with great difficulty, but also had to do hard work following the change of sides.
Initially, however, the violets had the first and ultimately best chance to score. Manuel Polster, who came on in the break for Dominik Fitz, who was hanging in the air, showed with a solo action (56th). Scissors and the pole were involved. The home fans felt hope for a moment, but what followed was the next blow to the neck: David Affengruber defeated Polster almost effortlessly in a header duel following a Sarkaria corner – 3:0 (60th).
Up until the final whistle, Austria successfully managed to limit the damage, and Sturm, with some fresh staff, ran off the show without a hitch.
For the Viennese, it is first “English” and then three times in a row away from home. The second leg in Banja Luka on Thursday will be followed by performances in Lustenau and Salzburg. Sturm welcomes LASK on Saturday before the Champions League qualifiers start the following Tuesday: Eindhoven is the opponent in the third round.
The voices of the game
- Christian Ilzer (Sturm coach): “I’m very happy, it was a great start. Vienna is not an easy place, others will still have problems. We forced our game on Austria today. We also have the key elements such as Tabakovic under control The only point of criticism is that we played too much for control and not enough for the end goal with a majority. But we cleared the opening hurdle, the first yardstick, very, very well.”
- Michael Wimmer (Austria coach): “We didn’t start well, so we decided to do something else. We fell behind early on, following the red card we had to collect ourselves first. Then it went a little happily with 0: 2 in the break, we might have been further behind. But I can’t blame my team following the break. In the end it was 3-0, a deserved win that’s okay too. When it came to set pieces, I thought we would have gotten a grip on it. But today it was confirmed that we still have problems there.”
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