Red Bulls beaten by Gamba Osaka

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FC Red Bull Salzburg

·15 July 2026

Red Bulls beaten by Gamba Osaka

0-3 defeat to AFC Champions League Two Winners

In the first of two friendly matches played this Wednesday, our team suffered a 0-3 defeat against Japanese club Gamba Osaka.

Match summary

Our Red Bulls started determinedly and on the front foot against the Japanese J1 League team, who recently won the AFC Champions League Two and celebrated a 1-0 victory against Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr in the final. Several promising attacks were somewhat sloppy in their execution, as we came close to taking the lead. After about 20 minutes, the game settled down a bit – until the 26th minute. Osaka striker Jebali then beautifully converted a free kick to give them the lead. Just three minutes later, the Tunisian headed in a corner to make it 2-0. Our men tried to get back into the game, but didn't create any real danger in front of the Japanese goal. Instead, Osaka added another goal through Hümmet, who capitalized on a mistake in our build-up play to make it 3-0.

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In the 60th minute, the planned raft of substitutions took place, and all of our squad players left the field to make way for the youngsters of FC Liefering. They got going immediately with a good shot from Rafael Feldinger, which was blocked. Moments later, Yerwin Sulbaran not only chipped the Osaka goalkeeper but also cleared the crossbar. Overall, the young team played the final minutes with flair and carefree abandon, but without managing to score.

Line-up

Sarcevic (61. Winklhofer); Lainer (61. Feldinger), Chase (61. Pokorny), Morgalla (61. Onwuzulike), Krätzig (61. Zangerl); Kitano (61. Aleksic), Kawamura (61. Grudzinskas), Camara (61. Ivanschitz); Aguilar (61. Leles), Diakite (61. Nisic/83. Kalimina), Redzic (61. Sulbaran)

Other things to note

The squad against Osaka today also included FC Liefering players Filip Aleksic, Rafael Feldinger, Dovas Grudzinskas, Teo Hupfauf, Ilia Ivanschitz, Said Nisic, Josh O'Dwyer, Ifeanyichukwu Onwuzulike, Jakob Pokorny, Yerwin Sulbaran, Jonas Winklhofer, Yuri Silva Leles and Jakob Zangerl, as well as guest player Jonathan Kalimina, who will become a Salzburg player in January 2027.
Unavailable today due to injury were Tim Drexler (thigh), Karim Konate (ill), John Mellberg (calf), Johannes Moser (training management) and Justin Omoregie (thigh).
Immediately after the match, the coaches and staff from Anif traveled to Nonntal for their second friendly of the day against Basaksehir.

Views after the match

After three positive results in preseason, today's performance wasn't good. Nevertheless, it was an important test because they were tough and strong opponents who won the Asian Champions League Two. These kinds of experiences are just as much a part of pre-season as wins. It's not always sunshine and rainbows - sometimes you have to face a setback. The important thing is that they make us stronger, that we learn from them, and that we do better next time.

Frans Krätzig