Painful defeat at WAC

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FC Red Bull Salzburg

·27 avril 2025

Painful defeat at WAC

1-2 away loss

Matchday 28 of the ADMIRAL Bundesliga saw us beaten 1-2 away at WAC. We can have no complaints at losing and seeing the hosts push us down into fourth in the table as we offered too little for long stretches of the match.

Match summary

Unsurprisingly, WAC coach Dietmar Kühbauer rotated ahead of the cup final in midweek with five changes compared to our meeting on Wednesday, but that was of no advantage to us in a disappointing first half. The hosts made a defensive start but suddenly stepped up a gear after around 10 minutes of play - and caused us real problems!

Vidéos OneFootball

While WAC had two efforts that were unused, Alex Schlager had no chance of stopping the next one. Omic curled a free-kick from the right that Nwaiwu sneaked forward to reach and make it 1-0 (15'). We did not take that as the wake-up call we should have, with WAC having several chances to increase their lead. There were hardly any chances our Red Bulls could muster as our attackers lacked ideas to break through the deep-seated defence. The best opportunity in the opening period was a Gloukh free-kick floated onto the crossbar, albeit WAC goalkeeper Polster looked to have it covered. It was a quiet end to the first-half until Schlager kept us in it by saving when Gattermayer was one-on-one with him. We had to be grateful to only be a single goal behind at the break after WAC had dominated.

Would we improve after the restart? Sadly not! The second half was barely ten minutes old when the hosts were able to slice open our defence again after winning the ball in the area. Kojzek was all alone in front of Schlager and hammered the ball clinically via the inside of the post and in for 2-0 (54'). WAC then were happy to hold onto their lead as we struggled to break them down. Only in the final 15 minutes were we able to really threaten. Vertessen thought he had pulled a goal back in the 73rd minute, but Edmund Baidoo has strayed just over the outline before cutting the ball back to him. Dorgeles Nene then scored a penalty in stoppage time (after a foul on Petar Ratkov) to pull us back to 1-2, but that was that as we slipped to a disappointing defeat.

Views

I have to congratulate WAC on a totally deserved win. If you want to win a title, you can't play like that - we weren't ready for the match. WAC were more brash and determined from the first minute on, and it felt like they won 80% of the challenges. Instead of playing our own game after going 0-1 down, we fell apart. You can't excuse it by saying we put pressure on them in the second half. A match lasts for 90 minutes – and we just weren't good enough over that period.

Thomas Letsch

That's not the way to go about things. As a team or as a club - it's just not enough. We have developed since the winter, but when it comes down to it, we just haven't been there at the crunch moment. To play with so little energy in such a decisive phase is painful.

Alex Schlager

Line-up

Substitutions

Daghim for Yeo (27'), E. Baidoo for Diambou (59'), Ratkov for Gloukh (59')

Yellow cards

Trummer (40' foul), Diambou (53' foul), Daghim (58' unsporting behaviour), Schlager (65' dissent), S. Baidoo (90+6' dissent)

Second yellow card

S. Baidoo (90+6' dissent)

Injury news

Not available for the match were Nicolas Capaldo (broken toe), Takumu Kawamura (collarbone), Maurits Kjaergaard (ankle), Karim Konate (knee), Leandro Morgalla (arm) and Karim Onisiwo (knee).