Because I have shitloads of work to do at the moment the next few match reports won’t be much more than this: An official gate of 1300 fans came to Maxglan to see Anif’s main rivals for promotion prove that neither team is ready to play in the second division yet. Having beaten Anif the week before, this game was to be the start of six days of fantasy madness ending with us taking nine points from three games and embarrassing the other two contenders. Having seen the game in Wattens and assuming they would play more defensively away from home in the Maxglan arena of death, the game probably had 0-0 written all over it, so when 0-0 is what came out at the end, it wasn’t such a big disappointment.

The only real issue of note for football nerds like me was the fact that Wattens’ no. goalscorer, Armin Hobel, did not start the game. Having scored 14 goals up to this point in the season I could only assume he was injured. Just like Milan Pavlovic in the interim PSV-Austria period, he has the same on pitch presence for Wattens. That is to say, he is the source of all light and hope. The shining star that guides the way. A Tyrolean Buddha controlling the elements and dynamics of time and space. The place to which all roads, passes and crosses lead. Without his regal eminence, Wattens were not much more than a bull terrier without teeth.
 
As the hit man wasn’t there, there was no target for the crosses and passes and through balls; no-one to hold up the ball for run-ons etc. Without being bad, Wattens were no more than a good, defensive team. With this in mind we were able to go at them, which we did. Although in the first half they got into our half a few times, they couldn’t produce anything productive, any more than we could break them down. We had a couple of chances, but it wasn’t as if we ‘had’ to win.
 
In the second half we got in amongst them even more and piled on the pressure; Vujic, Urbanek, Märzendorfer, and above all Mayer, all burning brightly. Talking of burning and shining brightly; on 60 minutes Wattens finally brought on ‘The Hobel’ himself. Maybe it was their plan to let us run ourselves ragged and then nick a goal toward the end, or maybe he had been injured, who knows, but he definitely gave Wattens more options.
 
However, although everything we do is ten times more complicated and consumes twice as much energy than other teams, the fact was that we had a lot more of the ball, limiting supply to the bright and shiny one. On balance we should have won 2-0 or 2-1, but there is no ‘on balance’ in football. There’s just goals or no goals. This one ended 0-0 and it was a point we could live with better than Wattens.  
 
Austria Salzburg played with:
Trappl; Kreuzwirth, Sonko, Oberauer, Hirsch; Urbanek, Federer (59. Pavlovic), Mayer, Reifeltshammer (75. Schmidt), Märzendorfer (78. Tanidis); Vujic
 
Shots total: Austria 11 / Wattens 9
Shots on target: Austria 1 / Wattens 1
Shots blocked: Austria 3 / Wattens 1
Corners: Austria 6 / Wattens 0
Fouls: Austria 23 / Wattens 21
Offsides: Austria 4 / Wattens 5
 
Yellow cards:
Austria: 1 (Reifeltshammer, 10./foul)
Wattens: 2 (Siller, 8./foul; Neumair, 58./foul)
 
Salzburg-Maxglan, MyPhone-Austria-Stadion, 1300 spectators
Ref: Peter Gruber; Assistants: Cindy Zeferino de Oliveira, Voislav Zubcic