5-0 friendly defeat at home to Bayern

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FC Red Bull Salzburg

·6 janvier 2026

5-0 friendly defeat at home to Bayern

German champions dominate second half

Our first friendly match of 2026 saw our Red Bulls well beaten by the stars of Bayern. The end result did not reflect the fact that our boys went toe-to-toe with the German champions in the first half, in particular, with several chances to take the lead. They then ran away with it towards the end of the second period.

Match summary

Over 29,000 fans at the Red Bull Arena witnessed a keenly contested first-half, in which we even managed to create more clear-cut chances!

Vidéos OneFootball

A high defensive line played by Kompany allowed us to launch several promising attacks with quick through balls, where Eddy Baidoo and Karim Konate, in particular, showed their superb pace.

We came closest to taking the lead in the 32nd and 33rd minutes when Sota Kitano found himself with plenty of space and time in front of Bayern goalkeeper Urbig, but hesitated too long. Konate and Baidoo almost scored on the rebound, but couldn't force the ball over the line. Shortly before the break, Bayern struck with clinical precision, perfectly suited to the ice-cold conditions. First, Schlager made a brilliant save with his foot from a Kane shot, before he was powerless to stop a deflected Ito effort (45').

After 15 minutes to warm up, both teams completely changed their teams, and the visitors restarted much more strongly. Just as we had begun to find our footing, Bayern Munich upped the ante with their technically superb play. Following a perfectly executed switch of play, Karl caught Christian Zawieschitzky off guard with his shot, making it 2-0 for his team (71'). Bayern – now fully in control – immediately added another goal, this time Chavez slotting home a squared ball from Karl (75').

Our best chance to reduce the deficit came when Alajbegovic's free-kick struck the crossbar (77'), before the Munich side once again demonstrated their class in the closing stages. Karl scored again (87'), and then Bischof sealed the victory in stoppage time (90+2').

Now we need to continue working on our play at our training camp in Belek before our competitive year of football starts at home against FC Basel in the UEFA Europa League on 22 January.

Views

We did well in the first half. It's frustrating that we didn't at least go into half-time with the scores level. We were proactive, didn't react, and we can take a lot of positives from that. The second half wasn't good though – we were constantly chasing the game, and that's how the goals came about.

Thomas Letsch

We started training three days ago and played against one of the best teams in Europe today. We saw glimpses of what we're capable of – it's obviously disappointing that things went the way they did in the second half. But now we're flying to our training camp and will prepare for the rest of the season.

Alex Schlager

Line-up

Match data

Line-ups & substitutions

FC Red Bull Salzburg (1st half): Schlager– Trummer, Gadou, Schuster, Krätzig – Bidstrup ©, Diabate – Baidoo, Kitano, Bischoff – Konate FC Red Bull Salzburg (2nd half): Zawieschitzky – Lainer ©, Mendes (85. Chase), Rasmussen, Aguilar – Sulzbacher, Kjaergaard – Yeo, Vertessen, Alajbegovic – Onisiwo (79. Lukic) FC Bayern (1st half): Urbig – Stanisic, Upamecano, Kiala, Ito – Goretzka, Santos – Olise, Guerreiro, Mike – Kane © FC Bayern (2nd half): Ulreich – Laimer, Tah ©, Kim, Ofli (82. Della Rovere) – Pavlovic, Bischof – Karl (89. Cardozo), Chavez (82. Fernandez), Gnabry – Diaz

Goals: Ito (45.), Karl (71./87.), Chavez (75.), Bischof (90.+2) Referee: Christopher Jäger

Injury news

Along with Takumu Kawamura (knee), John Mellberg (knee) and Justin Omoregie (Achilles), Aleksa Terzic and Petar Ratkov were missing (both ill).