Any road up, although it doesn’t usually snow properly in and around Salzburg in the valleys until the middle of January, the first half of the season is usually sent into hibernation at the start of November to protect the pitches, I guess. With 26 games to play in total it still allows a couple of the return legs to be played before Jack Frost finally moves in for the winter. So the team we played away on the first day of the season, Eugendorf, was now our guest in Maxglan.
In fact, at the end of the day Markus Schneidhofer has seen it all before. Markus Schneidhofer has to be given a medal for his battle against destiny. In the last fourteen months he has now lost against Austria Salzburg at least four times; twice with Thalgau, twice with Eugendorf. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to lose a few kilos and signs for Seekirchen so that we can beat him next year as well. On the other hand, maybe that’s enough déjà vu for a lifetime.
As the teams ran out we noticed a number of changes to the start of the season. Once again Robert Oberhauser was in the first team and Ivan Pecaranin on the bench. Although Alex Trappl might have been fit enough to play again, Didi Emich still chose to play Stefan Huber in goal. With Cavic off with the sniffles Mario Schleindl was given the nod and got to play from the kick-off.
Watching your team for ninety minutes is like listening to the radio every day. Slowly a pattern emerges and you start being able to predict things. Sometimes you are wrong, sometimes you are right, but over the course of a season you know who will be playing next year – and who won’t. Unless a bomb hits his house Mario Milic will be there next year. Mario has saved our arse on so many occasions with his speed and his body made of springs and rubber. He is young and may still be able to learn how to pass, shoot and cross. As usual, playing fairly centrally it was Milic that managed to get back fast enough to snuff out attacks that last year’s players might have been scrambling for. It wasn’t the first time this season and it won’t be the last, but I do seem to be repeating myself.
Actually, on the subject of repetition, Austria’s main radio station is an appallingly repetitive and unoriginal creature known as Hitradio Ö3 that plays shit you just don’t want to hear any more, like Tina Turner, Cher, Joe Cocker, Phil Collins, The Weather Girls, Nik Kershaw, Bon Jovi, Brian Adams, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits. Please stop! They also play certain ‘artists’ on what the Americans call ‘heavy rotation’ – Pink, Robbie Williams, Shakira, Jason Mraz and the sickly and a depressing poor man’s soft rock Metallica known as Nickelback. I hate almost every record they play on Ö3 and I doubt the people who listen to this station have ever heard more than 50 different songs in their entire lives. I know this has nothing to do with yesterday’s game, but I sometimes wonder if I’m the only person out there who hates this radio station this intensely.
Back to the game. Apart from a few forays into the area near our penalty area, Eugendorf and Mr Schneidhofer, didn’t really get much out of the opening minutes as most of the action was at the other end. Bernd Winkler has a great first touch and seems to be able to score goals in physically impossible situations. As the flags and heads of the other fans blocked my view of Eugendorf’s penalty area off to the left end of the pitch, I can only assume it was another one of those Winkler specials on 8 minutes. He’s not prolific, but with 14 goals this season he’s the next best thing and a great all-rounder.
As expected, we relaxed half a gear and let Eugendorf see more of the ball. If you score 10 goals every game you can afford to concede one or two, if you don’t – you can’t! We don’t have a Fekete, so we can’t afford to loosen up in defence or midfield. As the half progressed Eugendorf had a number of half-chances, the best ones hitting the crossbar and – at the risk of repeating myself – on another day, without deserving it, Eugendorf could have gone into the half time break in the lead. Whatever – they didn’t – we did! With the air temperature hovering 3 or 4 degrees above zero I didn’t really fancy another beer at half time, so it was hands-in-pockets and foot stomping for 10 minutes or so. Women’s football team, now!
Pondering the first half it was clear that our lead, although deserved, was by no means clear cut; not least due to the work of the referee, Mr Knapp. As far as his aura was concerned you couldn’t have wished for a nicer ref. He didn’t seem to be bothered when the players got worked up and kept smiling all the way through the game. I bet he gives to charity, is kind to animals and dresses up as Santa Claus for the local children at Christmas. From this perspective it would be unfair to claim his decisions were unfair, but there were times in the game I would have made completely contrary decisions. Since this happened to both teams I guess there was no overall injustice, but the more questionable decisions, the more a game becomes a lottery. Nice bloke though.
Second half. The only change I could see was that we were now playing from right to left. There’s something to be said for the logic of protecting football pitches from hordes of footballers over the winter months. Out pitch is now starting to look a bit ragged and well in need of a recuperative break. This, of course didn’t add to the standard of the football on offer, but as an Austria Salzburg supporter it is your duty to watch every game, however average, however cold; to chant and sing, drink beer and eat something, so that next year we can employ more players to churn up the pitch next November.
The first twenty minutes of the second half were not uneventful, with Stefan Huber pulling off a couple of brilliant saves and Oliver Schmidt, Mario Milic and Peter Urbanek snuffing out the rest of the danger. After Markus Schneidhofer whinged at the ref for something the ref decided he might like to see one of his yellow cards. A few seconds later there really was something to get annoyed about as DJ Mario Schleindl finally put us out of our collective misery with yet another goal at the right moment. 2-0 to Austria Salzburg.
Having seen a second goal go in and having received a yellow card, it seemed sensible enough to get Markus Schneidhofer off the pitch. From this point on the game dropped back a division and what with the quality of the pitch, the weather, the mass substitutions and the futility of any further resistance, the rest of the game looked like damage limitation on one side and result preservation on the other. After around 94 minutes the ref decided he’d seen enough and blew up to let everybody head off for the warmth of the restaurant at the home end of the pitch.
After we beat Thalgau away in August 2008 we spent a pleasant evening getting plastered in their restaurant on what the Austrians call ‘Sturm’ wine. It’s an early, sugary, unfiltered, yeasty version of white wine often made from the rest of the grapes that don’t make it to the white wine Premier League. Sometime during that heady and alcoholic evening ‘Max’ Schneidhofer came over to our table and told us he used to be a big Austria Salzburg fan. I hope he still is!
Roger Lord
SV Austria Salzburg - USC Eugendorf 2-0 (1-0)
Austria Salzburg played with:
Huber; Urbanek (83. Kluth), Schmidt, Milic, Oberhauser; Mayer, Federer, Neubauer, Rottensteiner (86. Pecaranin); Winkler (78. Seywald), Schleindl
Goals:
1-0: Winkler (8.) (Assist: Neubauer)
2-0: Schleindl (65.)
Shots total: Austria 13 / Eugendorf 11
Shots on target: Austria 3 / Eugendorf 7
Shots blocked: Austria 4 / Eugendorf 3
Corners: Austria 6 / Eugendorf 5
Fouls: Austria 34 / Eugendorf 24
Offsides: Austria 1 / Eugendorf 13
Yellow cards:
Austria: 2 (Winkler, 12./foul; Kluth, 91./foul)
Eugendorf: 4 (Wanner, 14./foul; Ramspacher, 64./foul; Schneidhofer, 65./criticism; Stübler, 70./criticism)
Salzburg-Maxglan, Austria-Platz, 1150 spectators
Ref: Manfred Knapp; Assistants: Christian Kühsling, Nenad Nikic
