Draw in friendly against Polish league leaders

FC Red Bull Salzburg

·27 January 2024

Draw in friendly against Polish league leaders

No goals on Kjaergaard's return

In our final friendly match of the winter break, our boys played out a 0-0 draw against Slask Wroclaw, league leaders of the Polish Ekstraklasa.

Match summary

Our Red Bulls took on tough and physical opponents in their third and final friendly match of the winter break. Ulmer, Dedic, Bidstrup & Co barely allowed the Polish league leaders over the halfway line and created plenty of chances. Good opportunities for Luka Sucic, Fernando (twice) and Maurits Kjaergaard, on his comeback, did not lead to a breakthrough, however.

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We tried to mix things up with shots from long-range against the defensive Polish outfit but had no luck in that way, either. Wroclaw threatened, for their part, just twice before the break with a counterattack and a free-kick.

In contrast to our first two friendly matches of the winter, in which we made a host of changes at half-time, Gerhard Struber afforded his starting XI more time out on the pitch with only two changes made in the introduction of Daouda Guindo and Roko Simic. Further substitutions were made later with Dijon Kameri, Amankwah Forson, Bryan Okoh and Leandro Morgalla coming on.

The character of the game changed after the break, with the Polish league leaders not under such a barrage of pressure and occasionaly causing some trouble at our end. There was no way past Alexander Schlager in goal this afternoon, however. Okoh and Forson both had late chances to win it that went unused.

Line-up

Schlager; Dedic (82' Morgalla), Solet (73' Okoh), Gourna-Douath, Ulmer; Bidstrup, Diambou (61' Kameri), Sucic, Kjaergaard (46' Guindo); Gloukh (61' Forson), Fernando (46' Simic)

To note

Unavailable today were Sekou Koita, Karim Konate, Dorgeles Nene (all at the African Cup of Nations), Samson Baidoo (ankle), Nicolas Capaldo (knee), Adam Daghim (ill), Strahinja Pavlovic (training individually), Petar Ratkov (rested due to light concussion) as well as Aleksa Terzic (muscular problems).
Maurits Kjaergaard made his comeback today after a long break with a shoulder injury.
Our boys are to train tomorrow but have a day off on Monday.
Our first competitive match of 2024 takes place next Friday with a cup quarter-final at LASK.

Yellow card

Diambou (41' foul)

Referee

Manuel Baumann

Views

It wasn't easy today, as it felt like the opponents parked the bus. We kept on trying to find a way through, and we created one or two good chances. We didn't manage to convert that into goals at the end, however. There were some great moments of pressing, we had the game in control and were very composed. You could see we have taken some big steps forward. That is good, because we'll be in action again soon.

Gerhard Struber

I am very pleased to be back on the pitch with the guys. The shoulder isn't causing any problems anymore, and I can go fully into challenges. My personal aim in the spring is to get as much playing time as possible. The friendly match today was okay, we pushed the opponents well back in the first half, in particular, and created several chances. We didn't manage to score, however.

Maurits Kjaergaard