2024-03-31 03:07:18
For the first time since September, Austria Lustenau wanted to leave the bottom of the Bundesliga table on Holy Saturday. Instead of giving up the “Red Lantern”, the Vorarlbergers were the losers of the round in the qualifying group. Lustenau lost 2-1 at home to the penultimate team WSG Tirol, and Blau-Weiß Linz (0-0 once morest Austria Vienna) and SCR Altach (0-0 at WAC) each picked up a point. Andreas Heraf’s team is five points behind the trio.
“It’s a setback, but not too much of a setback,” said Heraf following the deserved defeat. After the last three games without defeat, there was great hope of overtaking the WSG with a win. But “from the first to the last minute not much happened. I felt it during the warm-up, it wasn’t like the last few weeks,” said Heraf.
The Tyroleans, led by the outstanding Nik Prelec, proved to be the better team and earned a well-deserved cushion of points. “It would have been undeserved if we had left points because we were the better team for 90 minutes,” emphasized coach Thomas Silberberger, who is ending the season following this season and is determined to hand over the Watten team as a Bundesliga team.
The chances of this increased significantly over the Easter weekend. “Five points is a good lead in this phase of the championship,” explained the long-term coach. In addition, success in a game that he declared to be a “first final” was also psychologically valuable. “I had the feeling that Lustenau thought they would be ahead of us following this matchday,” said Silberberger.
For the Altach team, however, there was great anger in the Lavanttal following the fourth draw in a row. The Vorarlbergers delivered a good performance despite travel difficulties – the team bus broke down on the way to the stadium following an engine failure – but the conversion of opportunities left something to be desired. “It’s a shame that we mightn’t take three points because we were better,” said coach Joachim Standfest.
Standfest explicitly did not want to comment on one scene. In the 75th minute, referee Safak Barmaksiz saw a foul from Altach captain Lukas Jäger on Dominik Baumgartner during a free kick, and in the same action Constantin Reiner headed the ball into the goal to give Vorarlberg the supposed lead. “That’s a bad joke,” said Jäger angrily at Sky. Baumgartner showed understanding. “There is no question that this happens very often in the game and is probably not given 90 to 95 percent of the time,” said WAC captain Baumgartner.
According to the TV images, Barmaksiz also stood behind his decision that Jäger had clasped Baumgartner illegally. “The player Jäger only intends to block Baumgartner. He only has his eyes on the opponent, doesn’t want to play the ball and blocks it with both hands,” said Barmaksiz. A duel with physical contact in the penalty area was standard practice, “but with the intention of playing the ball,” explained the referee.
The WAC was therefore able to live well with the point; the gap to the qualifying group leaders Austria Vienna remains one point. After the journey home to the Ländle with a replacement bus, the Altachers await the trend-setting games once morest WSG Tirol and away at Austria Lustenau.
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