Painful defeat to take into international break

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FC Red Bull Salzburg

·6 October 2024

Painful defeat to take into international break

0-5 loss at Sturm Graz

The ninth matchday of the ADMIRAL Bundesliga saw us take a 0-5 defeat at SK Sturm Graz. The hosts made a great start and continued to press on, while nothing would happen for our boys, making for a thoroughly forgettable afternoon.

Match summary

It started on the wrong foot and continued from there, unfortunately. We got our first shock in the opening minutes - albeit it proved to be a false alarm, as Graz broke from our corner to launch a devastating break. Thankfully, Jatta was standing a fraction offside before he fired in (7'), but shortly after Sturm took the lead for good.

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It came from another corner - this time from the hosts. The ball bounced out of the area towards Malick Yalcouve. The man from Mali had a shot that took an unstoppable deflection (15') as the hosts took control of the play and continued to threaten.

We were caught cold again some 15 minutes later. Sturm sharpshooter Mika Biereth gained too much space in the penalty area and sent his header into the post. The ball bounced from there into the back of Janis Blaswich's arm and over the line - summing up our miserable afternoon in the process (30').

There were no signs of any improvement after the break - on the contrary. A mistake in our build-up play presented the ball to SK Sturm Graz just outside our penalty area, and Biereth was able to take it, turn and slot it clinically into the bottom corner (50').

Boosted by the perfect start to the second half, Sturm went on to seize full control of the play, while our carelessness made things very tough. The final blow came in the 62nd minute when Böving played a perfect cross into the centre, and Biereth completed his hat-trick.

We were well out of ideas while the hosts just kept on pushing. Our boys could barely threaten the Graz goal over the entire afternoon. The final nail in the coffin then came as Böving took a corner, and Aiwu headed to make it 5-0 (76').

It's probably a useful time to have an international break. We will hope to use the time to clear our heads and start again in two weeks with plenty of challenges ahead.

Views

Their pressing caused us lots of problems, and they scored when they had their moments. Sturm were very efficient, and deserved the win, of course. It was definitely one of the worst matches I've seen from us. It's a long season, and lots of things have worked well already. We are wondering why we are a shadow of our true selves at the moment.

Pepijn Lijnders

We didn't offer enough today in every aspect of our play. Lots of things didn't go right. It's great we have two weeks now to analyse things. We have to come back after the international break and play at a different level.

Mads Bidstrup

Line-up

Substitutions

Guindo for Morgalla (29'), Piatkowski for Blank (46'), Clark for Dedic (57'), E. Baidoo for Konate, Gourna-Douath for Gloukh (both 73')

Yellow cards

Piatkowski (66' foul), Bajcetic (90' foul)

Injury news

Not available were Fernando (thigh), Takumu Kawamura (knee), Maurits Kjaergaard (ankle), Petar Ratkov (thigh) and Aleksa Terzic (thigh). Dorgeles Nene (thigh) and Moussa Yeo (ankle) were also out.