Friendly win against Croatian runners-up

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FC Red Bull Salzburg

·17 July 2024

Friendly win against Croatian runners-up

Adam Daghim seals 1-0 win

Our side won 1-0 in a friendly match against HNK Rijeka at the Anif sports centre on the way back from our training camp in Saalfelden. Adam Daghim scored the winning goal.

MATCH SUMMARY

Our Red Bulls started with just the kind of intensity the new coaching team have been demanding as our boys circulated the ball with purpose and pressed the Croatian runners-up intently. Captain Amar Dedic had to slide to clear the ball away from the goal line, however, as the resolute opponents breached our defence on their first attack and Jankovic slipped the ball past the outrushing Jonas Krumrey (12'). Petar Ratkov seized on a loose ball and slotted narrowly wide on the turn as we threatened for the first time midway through the opening half (21') before Moussa Yeo also sent a shot the wrong side of the post from a similar situation (23'). Mamady Diambou had a fierce volley saved as our pressure continued (27'), before Rijeka found further chances too with Krumrey completing a spectacular flying save to deny Banda (30') and Hendry Blank put in a goal-saving sliding tackle (35') to keep us level at the break.

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Pep Lijnders introduced five substitutes at the start of the second period, who injected the desired fresh impetus into our play. After controlling the opening phase, one of our new five, young striker Adam Daghim, converted calmly past the Croatian goalkeeper to give us a deserved lead (60'). A further four changes immediately followed, but it was a player who remained on from the start, Dorgeles Nene, who almost doubled our lead when flashing over the bar from the edge of the box (65'). After two further changes, one of which saw Leandro Morgalla completing his comeback after myocardial inflammation, the game entered a quieter final phase as our boys gained a stranglehold of possession. Although their efforts to prize a way through the Rijeka defence again did not impact the scoresheet, the narrow lead was comfortably taken home.

LINE-UP

Krumrey (61' Hamzic); Dedic (45' Van der Brempt), Piatkowski (61' Gourna-Douath), Blank (61' Wallner), Mellberg (45' Lukic); Capaldo (45' Daghim/72' Simic), Diambou (45' Diabate), Kjaergaard (45' Baidoo); Forson (72' Morgalla), Ratkov (61' Konate), Yeo (61' Nene)

OTHER THINGS TO NOTE

Not available today for various reasons were Janis Blaswich, Mads Bidstrup, Fernando, Oscar Gloukh, Daouda Guindo, Dijon Kameri, Takumu Kawamura, Bryan Okoh, Alexander Schlager and Aleksa Terzic.
Strahinja Pavlovic, Oumar Solet and Luka Sucic are to return to training tomorrow.
Some FC Liefering youngsters appeared again in Soumaila Diabate, Salko Hamzic, Oliver Lukic and John Mellberg.
Today's friendly match marked the end of our 11-day training camp in Saalfelden. Amar Dedic & Co are returning to Salzburg and will train agian tomorrow.
Oscar Gloukh has been called up by Israel for the Olympic Games and will be off for several weeks from 20 July, depending on how Israel perform.
Our next and final pre-season friendly match comes this Saturday at 16:00 CEST at the Red Bull Arena (behind closed doors) against English second-tier side Sheffield Wednesday. You will be able to read all about it on our website.

VIEWS AFTER THE MATCH

It was really emotional to play again after six months out. I have been working really hard for the team for a while, and I am delighted to have gained some playing time. If you get back onto the pitch after such a long time, you can notice that not everything is right. The more minutes I get, the more I am getting into gear. We are very happy that it is getting going again in ten days' time. We won three out of four friendly matches, and there were some good things in them. We now have to work on fine-tuning the details so that we are ready for the first match of the new season.

Leandro Morgalla

The friendly match today and all of the past three weeks taught us so much. We trained really hard and had a three-day rhythm with the friendly matches. We made sure that everyone has as much playing time as possible. We really mixed up the team again today. We showed a stable performance despite all the substitutions and changes, controlled the game well and won. On the whole, I am pleased with the performance shown by our boys, and there was a lot that pleased me about it.

Pepijn Lijnders