“Things could have gone worse,” said Kühbauer in a statement that fits the season so far as well as his team’s most recent 4-1 win. Because Altach let LASK run in circles at the beginning of the second half in Pasching and compensated for the half-time deficit in the 61st minute through Jan Jurcec to make it 1-1. “We started a little differently and had problems in the first 20 minutes because we weren’t that active on the ball,” explained Kühbauer.
Branko Jovicic’s almost instantaneous 2:1 was an effective hit that inevitably put Altach on the losing side. The goals from Sascha Horvath and Efthymios Koulouris were the extras and sealed the fourth LASK victory in a row. Kühbauer was particularly pleased with the Greek’s first league goal. “He doesn’t know a situation like this. He actually came here as a first striker,” said Kühbauer about “Koulou”, who previously had to let Marin Ljubicic go first. “He just dropped a load.”
“Points didn’t fly in the door”
Ljubicic went away empty-handed, but continues to lead the scorers list with his six goals. 16 goals after six rounds – as many as champions Red Bull Salzburg – are “not the worst either”, remarked Kühbauer almost casually. But the stabilized defense compared to the previous season is also a key factor why things are going so well so far. With five goals conceded, they are number four in the league behind Salzburg and Rapid (3 each) and Sturm Graz (4).
“The guys have just done well so far. The points didn’t just fly in the door because we’re such a nice or big or small team, we scored the points because we played good football,” said Kühbauer. However, the lead in the table itself doesn’t mean much to him. “If it were like that at the end of the year I wouldn’t mind, but it’s a table that’s beautiful and nothing more.”
Salzburg with “best performance so far”
Coach Matthias Jaissle also thinks it’s nice in Salzburg that his team is getting better and better. The coach described the 6-0 victory as “the best performance of the season so far. We got football on the pitch that we set out to do.” The Bulls hadn’t always succeeded in the previous five rounds. In addition to the 2-1 defeat against Sturm at the end of July, the victories in Hartberg (2-0) and at home against WAC (2-1) and Austria Klagenfurt (2-0) were also lackluster work victories.
Salzburg defeated Lustenau
Masters Salzburg don’t give Austria Lustenau a chance and defeat Vorarlberg 6-0.
That changed now in the “Ländle”, where the Jaissle squad presented themselves efficiently in the first half and dismantled the Lustenauer in the second half. “We’ve shown that in recent years, once we get going it’s difficult to stop us. Today we got a bit of a knot in the direction of a Champions League performance,” said Maximilian Wöber.
First hit for 18-year-old Kameri
The half-dozen goals were scored by six different players. One of them was 18-year-old Dijon Kameri, who scored his debut goal in the Bundesliga to make it 6-0 shortly after being substituted on. The midfielder had also set up Junior Adamu’s 5-0 lead and thus impressively demonstrated his talent. “The coach trusts in my strengths, that’s important for me. Hopefully I’ll play in the Champions League then, that would be something really big for me,” said Kameri. In any case, Jaissle was satisfied with his protégé. “He’s on the right track.”
In any case, the anticipation for the matches against AC Milan, Chelsea and Dinamo Zagreb is already great. “Awesome group, awesome teams, awesome cities, awesome fans,” said Kameri. Jaissle does not believe that the change between the big European football stage and everyday league life could result in adjustment problems for his team. “As a coaching team, we will make sure that we sharpen the team for every game, no matter where and against whom.”
