“It’s a setback, but not too much of a setback,” said Heraf after the deserved defeat. After the last three games without defeat, there was great hope of overtaking the WSG with a win. But “from the first to the last minute not much came together. I felt it when I was warming up, it wasn’t like the last few weeks,” said Heraf, who took over as coach in the winter.
The Tyroleans, led by the outstanding Nik Prelec, proved to be the better team and gave themselves a well-deserved cushion. “It would have been undeserved if we had dropped points because we were the better team over 90 minutes,” said coach Thomas Silberberger, who is ending the season after this season and is determined to hand over the Watten team as a Bundesliga team.
Lustenau loses relegation duel
Austria Lustenau suffered a home defeat in the direct relegation duel against WSG Tirol on Saturday. The Vorarlbergers are now five points behind the Tyroleans.
Silberberger is happy about the “good lead”
The chances increased significantly over the Easter weekend. “Five points is a good lead in this phase of the championship,” said the long-term coach. In addition, success in a game that he declared to be a “first final” was also psychologically valuable. “I had the feeling that Lustenau thought they would be ahead of us after this matchday,” said Silberberger.
GEPA/Oliver Lerch On his last mission with the WSG Tirol, Silberberger achieved an important victory
Altach is annoyed in Wolfsberg
For the Altach team, however, there was great anger in the Lavanttal after the fourth draw in a row. The Vorarlbergers delivered a good performance despite travel difficulties – the team bus broke down on the way to the stadium after an engine failure – only the conversion of opportunities left something to be desired. “It’s a shame that we couldn’t take three points because we were better,” said coach Joachim Standfest.
WAC remains in second place in the qualifying group
The game RZ Pellets WAC against Cashpoint Altach ended in a goalless draw on Saturday. This means that the WAC remains in second place behind Wiener Austria in the Admiral Bundesliga qualifying group.
Standfest explicitly did not want to comment on one scene. In the 75th minute, referee Safak Barmaksiz saw a foul from Altach captain Lukas Jäger on Dominik Baumgartner during a free kick, and in the same action Constantin Reiner headed the ball into the goal to give Vorarlberg the supposed lead. “That’s a bad joke,” said Jäger angrily. Baumgartner showed understanding. “There is no question that this happens often in the game and is probably not given 90 to 95 percent of the time,” said WAC captain Baumgartner.
According to the TV images, Barmaksiz stood behind his decision that Jäger had grabbed Baumgartner illegally. “The player Jäger only intends to block Baumgartner. He only has his eyes on the opponent, doesn’t want to play the ball and blocks it with both hands,” said Barmaksiz. A duel with contact in the penalty area is standard practice, “but with the intention of playing the ball,” said the referee.
WAC can live with a point
The WAC was able to live with the point; the gap to the leaders of the qualifying group, Austria Vienna, remains one point. After the journey home to the “Ländle” with a replacement bus, the Altachers await the trend-setting games against WSG Tirol and away at Austria Lustenau.
