FC Red Bull Salzburg
·26 July 2024
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Yahoo sportsFC Red Bull Salzburg
·26 July 2024
Our return to action after a two-month break could not have been any more pleasing. The sun was shining, the pitch was fresh and there was a party atmosphere in the stands - what more could you possibly want?
Our 6-0 success at FC Dornbirn saw us clear the first hurdle in the UNIQA ÖFB Cup in superb style. We needed close to 30 minutes until we broke through the Dornbirn defence, but after that our boys made short shrift of the regional league opponents.
After a turbulent few weeks off the pitch, the hosts made a surprisingly resilient start, with the newly assembled side under Eric Orie doing a superb job of keeping us at bay in the opening phases.
Our Red Bulls began to create chances by the minute after around a quarter of an hour, with Dornbirn goalkeeper Raphael Morscher equal to our efforts at first. He got to a Kjaergaard shot in the 28th minute, before an attempted clearance from defender Kacarevic bounced off Karim Konate and found its way into the net (29'). The dam proved to have been burst - as the goals truly began to fly in. It took only four more minutes until Konate struck again, this time with a header from a cross (32'). Our third goal came from Adam Daghim, who took hold of a cut-back from Amar Dedic and slammed it inside the far post with a wonderful direct strike (35'). The hosts in red had not given up, and their fans were thrilled to see them break into the area on a break a while later. There was no need for newly appointed captain Janis Blaswich to break into a sweat, however. The one-way traffic resumed, and a cracking Kjaergaard strike from long-distance made it 4-0 at half-time (38').
We started the second half in the same way we finished the first. It took a while for us to build the tempo, however, and FC Dornbirn almost grabbed a consolation goal. A ball in the box from the opponents was cleared by Adam Daghim, who tracked back well but sent the ball just wide of the target. The hosts had shown that despite going 0-4 down, they wanted to put up a fight - although there was only one team getting on the scoresheet in this encounter. Substitute Lucas Gourna-Douath was positioned perfectly after Morscher parried the ball out and turned the ball into the net to make it 5-0 (59'). Despite our efforts to increase our lead further, the Dornbirn defence stood firm and stopped us running further away with it. Shortly before the end, Mamady Diambou sank another bolt from distance to make it 6-0 (83'). We therefore earned comfortable progression to the next round - and we can look ahead at our challenges to come. We will find out on Sunday who we are to face in the second round of the UNIQA ÖFB Cup (27 to 29 August). Next week we open our ADMIRAL Bundesliga season too away at Grazer AK!
The way we played even before the opening goal pleased me, as we kept at it and didn't allow ourselves to get frustrated. We played the game in the right way, in a very professional way. What we were missing still is players getting into high enough positions at times, but on the whole I'm very happy with our gegenpressing and how we defended long balls. We are in the next round - which is just where we want to be!
Pepijn Lijnders
It's a great feeling to be out on the pitch with the boys in a competitive match. It was a match we had to win, and a match we had to deserve to win - it felt really good. We wanted to put into practice the things we did well in the pre-season in our first cup match. I am proud of the team!
Janis Blaswich
It was a great start, and just what we wanted - to be dominant and win! We gave our best to make the formation a natural one, and we managed that well.
Amar Dedic
Blaswich; Dedic, Baidoo, Blank, Terzic; Diambou; Capaldo, Kjaergaard; Daghim, Konate, Nene
Bidstrup for Kjaergaard (59'), Gourna-Douath for Capaldo (59'), Ratkov for Konate (67'), Yeo for Daghim (67'), Piatkowski for Blank (76')
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