The Wolfsberg Lavanttal Arena seems to lose its terror for Rapid. Three weeks after the success in the ÖFB Cup quarter-finals, the Hütteldorfer drove the next victory in the WAC home on Sunday, this time there was a 2-1 in the Bundesliga. As a result, the fourth-placed Green-Whites came very close to participating in the championship group, three laps before the division, the lead over seventh-placed Austria Klagenfurt is six points.
Previously, Rapid had only had three full successes in 20 championship away matches against the Carinthians. “It was a good performance with a deserved win at WAC, where we always struggled,” said coach Zoran Barisic. “We did a lot of things very, very well in a very important game for us.”
Rapid got their third win in their fourth competition game this year – and that despite the fact that there are a number of long-term injuries to be lamented and Marco Grüll and Oliver Strunz also had to sit out at short notice due to muscle problems. “We were missing seven top players and we made up for it as a team. That’s the biggest compliment I can give the lads,” stressed Barisic.
Next Sunday, the home crowd will face table leaders and defending champions Red Bull Salzburg. “We’ll work hard this week and then give Salzburg a fight,” promised Rapid goalscorer Bernhard Zimmermann.
While Rapid can only theoretically fly out of the top six, the master group should go on stage without the WAC for the first time since the Bundesliga reform. The ninth-placed Wolfsbergers are six points behind in sixth place three matches before the end of the regular season. The dreary home record made a better starting position impossible: For the first time ever, the Carinthians in the upper house lost five times in a row in the Lavanttal Arena, in the most recent 15 home games they always conceded at least one goal and in the previous ten league season appearances in front of their own audience only four watched points out.
Coach Robin Dutt was still combative and pointed out that you can also qualify for the European Cup via the qualification group. “The nice thing about the mode is that it is dangerous, but at the same time offers opportunities to still achieve the goal of the season,” said the German in the Sky interview.
Four points behind the WAC is the table tenth Altach after the home 0:0 against the WSG Tirol. Miroslav Klose, the Vorarlberg coach, was not dissatisfied. “It was a step in the right direction compared to the last few games.” His WSG colleague Thomas Silberberger was also able to live with the draw. “If someone had told me four months ago that we had 28 points after 19 rounds, I would have called them crazy,” explained the manager of the fifth-placed team.
After the final whistle, his defender Raffael Behounek made a sweeping attack on the referees. “I don’t know what’s wrong with us in refereeing. Overall, they’re just bad, you just have to say it like that,” he said on Sky.
The performance of referee Stefan Ebner, who was on duty at Altach – WSG, was described by Behounek as “inferior” and cited the early yellow card for his club colleague Kofi Schulz as an example. “Then he (note: Ebner) comes to me during the break and says it wasn’t a foul and it wasn’t a yellow card. I think that’s no good for us.”
Ebner confirmed Behounek’s statements by admitting that he had wrongly shown Schulz the yellow card. “We saw the TV pictures at half-time, it was a wrong decision. That shouldn’t happen, we didn’t communicate well in the team,” said the referee. Ebner took Behounek’s criticism relatively calmly. “I’m not angry with anyone if someone says a bad word about my performance.”