Regardless of whether we score goals or not, 14 ‘goals against’ in 8 games speaks a language of its own. 13 away goals in 3 league games is like going on holiday and leaving your front door open with a note on it; ‘please feed the cats’. Talk about naive! Ever asked yourself why boxers like to fight in their home town, why each golfer has his own favourite course, why some tennis players are better on clay – others on grass?
There are good refs and bad refs. Maybe he or she (Cindy) is more or less likely to give a penalty or free kick to the home side, or not. It can change a game, but isn’t enough on its own to explain the difference between our home and away performances. Forget the ref!
1: If you play at home you have your fans behind you. If you make mistakes, as long as you work hard to put things right the people give you their support. The away team will feel unwelcome, a long way from home. If you have the right fans, you put 100% into everything you do and have the 20% positive adrenaline advantage. Teams playing away from home don’t feel as comfortable as they do at home; it’s a fact of life. So if this is true for teams coming to Maxglan, maybe it’s true for us too.
2: It doesn’t matter if every pitch has exactly the same dimensions; the fact is – especially for players who have a good eye for a long opening pass – it takes time to calibrate to the unfamiliar surroundings. A pass you’ve played a million times in training looks completely different against a different background, which leads to uncertainty, bad passes or a different choice of pass. A different surface under your feet – harder, softer, bumpier, more slippery – and suddenly you think you’ve forgotten how to play football.
Those are two massive factors, one emotional - the other technical. Which is why a lot of away teams play very defensively and try to smother the game for the first half hour, to calm their nerves and to work out how to play the pitch and the passes. We have one tactic, which – as mentioned in these chronicles on several occasions – is all about storming the Bastille. I admit, unless I managed to get out to the Swiss end of Austria and watch a couple of games, I could just be talking out of my arse; but I fear we have a chronic case of ‘home and away syndrome’.
Why do we run out onto foreign battlefields screaming ‘death or dishonour’? If you like to see things in terms of black and white, you won’t be happy with either choice; but somewhere in the mists of military history, generals started to realise it didn’t make sense sending thousands of brightly dressed soldiers into battle with pipes and drums and flags! If the goal for this year is to defend our home record and improve our away record, wouldn’t it be better to come away with a few 0-0 draws – and a few points? No dishonour in that!
Thanks to Barbara F for the depressing ticker service!
Be good; and if you can’t be good – be careful!
Roge
SC Bregenz - SV Austria Salzburg 4-0 (1-0)
Austria Salzburg played with:
Trappl; Kircher, Sonko, Reifeltshammer, Hirsch; Urbanek (57. Pavlovic), Kletzl, N. Mayer (46. Federer), Märzendorfer (64. Kreuzwirth); P.Mayer, Vujic
Goals:
1-0: Alibabic (41.)
2-0: Alibabic (47.)
3-0: Alibabic (53.)
4-0: Erbek (67.)
Shots total: Bregenz 12 / Austria 11
Shots on target: Bregenz 8 / Austria 2
Shots blocked: Bregenz 1 / Austria 1
Corners: Bregenz 5 / Austria 1
Fouls: Bregenz 26 / Austria 21
Offsides: Bregenz 6 / Austria 1
Yellow cards:
Bregenz: 1 (Neunteufel, 12./Foul)
Austria: 3 (N. Mayer, 45+1./Foul; Kletzl, 55./Foul; Kircher, 87./Foul)
Bregenz, Casinostadion, 700 spectators
Ref: Michael Schiffmann; Assistants: Okay Özüyer, Midhat Taletovic
