ADMIRAL Bundesliga Matchday 22 Reports

FC Red Bull Salzburg 4-0 CASHPOINT SCR Altach

Salzburg outclassed struggling Altach to finish the regular season on a high with a comfortable win.

Life can be cruel when you’re at the bottom of the table; visiting keeper Tino Casali parried Junior Adamu’s early penalty, he’s now saved three this season - more than any other keeper - yet for the second game in a row the rebound found the back of the net. That was Adamu’s fourth goal of the season, and his first at the Red Bull Arena.

Halfway through the first half, Maximilian Wöber celebrated his comeback by heading in for 2-0. The centre back has now scored three times in this campaign, all with his head. The game wasn’t even half an hour old when Luka Sucic rewarded Salzburg boss Matthias Jaissle by netting his first goal as a member of the starting XI. Altach steadied the ship until the end of the game, but another penalty, this time cleanly converted by Karim Adeyemi, made it 4-0 in stoppage time. League top scorer Adeyemi has now bagged his last five goals all from the subs’ bench, Altach have suffered ten straight defeats, and need a major turnaround for the next phase of the season in the bottom-six ‘Qualification Group’.

FC Flyeralarm Admira 1-2 SV FK Austria Wien

Austria Wien had to do it the hard way on Sunday, but their comeback win left them safely in the top-six at the end of the regular season. Wilhelm Vorsager’s seventh minute header put the hosts in front, and it looked for a long time as though Admira’s spirited display would leave Austria in serious trouble. Jan Vodhánel provided the assist for the opening goal with a whipped in cross, meaning that the Czech left-winger has been involved in two goals in his first four league appearances.

After scoring a precious winner last weekend, Alaxander Grünwald was at it again in the second half, bursting into the box to sweep home from Marvin Martins’ deflected square-ball. That was only Grünwald’s second goal of the season, but he’s now scored 68 Bundesliga goals in total, more than any other active player. The turnaround was complete for Austria with less than ten minutes to play. Muharem Huskovic rode a challenge on the right before passing to Romeo Vucic who slotted into the bottom corner for his first Bundesliga goal. That left Austria up in fourth at the end of the day, meaning that they’ll take part in the ‘Championship Group’ for the rest of the season. Admira stay eleventh, having lost six in a row at home.

RZ Pellets WAC 1-0 LASK

The ball was in the net three times at the Lavanttal Arena on Sunday, but only one goal would count as WAC edged out a profligate LASK side.

After a period of LASK dominance in the first half, Thorsten Röcher fired in from an angle only to be denied by VAR for a foul in the build-up. He would get to celebrate shortly after the break though, calmly finishing after a short pass back from the visiting defence. Röcher’s fourth goal of the season brings him level with last season’s tally. Mario Leitgeb put the ball in for Wolfsberg once more, but the offside flag was correctly raised.

LASK were already out of the top-six race, yet after 21 shots on goal, they’ll be frustrated to leave Carinthia with no points. Sascha Horvath had four shots, the most of anyone in the game, but teammates Marvin Potzmann, Andreas Gruber and Alexander Schmidt could all have scored from their chances. Filip Twardzik had 101 touches, the most of the game, and so nearly made one count with a long shot which forced a flying save from WAC keeper Alexander Kofler. There would be no way through, leaving LASK in eighth place, and securing an eleventh win of the season for Robin Dutt’s Wolfsberg, who sit third.

SV Guntamatic Ried 2-2 SK Puntigamer Sturm Graz

All the drama of the regular season’s final day was on display in Ried, where the hosts narrowly missed out on a place in the top six despite leading twice against SK Sturm.

Knowing that only a win was likely to be enough to reach the ‘Championship Group’, SV Ried came flying out of the blocks at the Josko Arena, where they have enjoyed a very strong record this season. They had the ball in the net in the first half, but after that was ruled out, they had to wait until just after the break for Leo Mikic to pass to Stefan Nutz, whose shot beat an unsighted Jörg Siebenhandl in the Sturm goal. Sturm struck back and set up a thrilling finale when Rasmus Höjlund expertly teed-up Manprit Sarkaria to roll in goal number eight of the season - his most ever in one campaign.

With just over ten minutes left to play, Stefan Nutz found Leo Mikic, who slalomed past the Sturm defence before hammering in an unstoppable shot for 2-1! That was assist number eleven of the season for Nutz, more than anyone else this season, and his highest ever personal tally. The Ried fans were in dreamland as their team moved back into the top six. The joy would prove temporary though, after keeper Samuel Sahin-Radlinger was sent off, the ten men couldn’t hang on to the finish. Following a melee in the Ried area, Gregory Wüthrich was on hand to stab home a scrappy leveller in the 87^th minute, a goal which kept Sturm second in the table, and pushed Ried agonisingly down to seventh.

SK Rapid Wien 3-0 SK Austria Klagenfurt

A huge home win for Rapid Wien allowed them to escape from any final day drama to book their place in the top six, and the guests followed them in after a nervous wait to check results elsewhere.

Rapid were cheered on by more than 20,000 fans at the Allianz Stadium, and young forward Bernhard Zimmermann became the hero of the hour, when he slammed a bouncing ball into the net to give his team a first half lead. After the break he repeated the trick, converting into the top corner from a Marco Grüll pass. For Zimmermann, it was two goals with his first two shots in the Bundesliga; for Grüll, a seventh Bundesliga assist, and a fifth of the season, all of which have come at home. 

Klagenfurt battled to try to get back into the game, but Rapid had them at arm’s length, killing the game off with Ferdy Druijf’s late strike on the counter. It was his first league goal for Rapid in his fourth appearance, and in truth the hosts could have had more, given the fact that they managed 22 shots over the 90 minutes. Rapid were safely into the ‘Championship Group’, and in the end, promoted Klagenfurt also secured their Bundesliga status at the earliest opportunity, finishing the regular season in a solid sixth, a place they can now not fall below in the 2021/22 season.

TSV Egger Glas Hartberg 0-1 WSG Tirol

Hartberg’s hard luck continued as they slipped to a narrow home defeat against WSG Tirol.

A well-worked throw-in led to Tim Prica setting-up Bror Blume’s fifth minute header to give the guests the lead. It was Prica’s second assist of the season, and Blume’s second goal. After that, WSG were forced to defend as Philipp Sturm, Donis Avdijaj and Dario Tadic all tried their luck, but couldn’t beat Ferdinand Oswald in goal.

Hartberg’s Youba Diarra and Jürgen Lemmerer also tested the WSG goalie in the second half as the hosts dominated the shot count by a massive sixteen to three, but they couldn’t find the back of the net, and the visitors somehow clung on to their precious advantage. With the win, WSG overtook their hosts to move up to ninth in the table. Hartberg slipped to tenth, but the teams will meet again as they’re both part of the ‘Qualification Group’ for the remainder of this campaign.