Ahead of this game, two matchdays were remaining in the qualification group of the Austrian Bundesliga. Austria Vienna and Altach were ahead of this matchday in the first and second position respectively and were already qualified to participate in the play-offs (the first two teams of the qualification group and the fourth and fifth of the championship round will participate).
Austria Vienna collected 28 points and Altach had 26 ahead of this direct clash while St. Pölten had 19 points and therefore they couldn’t catch up with Altach and Vienna in the two remaining games. Considering this, this game between Altach and Austria Vienna was the direct match-up of the two best teams of the qualification group and meanwhile also important for the race for the first place.
In this tactical analysis, we will discuss the tactics of both sides and investigate the reasons for the 2-1 victory of Austria Vienna.
Lineups
Both coaches went with their typical formations. Alex Pastoor lined up the home side in a 4-1-4-1 with Martin Kobras between the sticks. The back four was made of Anderson, Berkay Dabanli, Philipp Schmiedl and Emir Karic. Jan Zwischenbrugger was the lone defensive midfielder and was supported in the centre by Johannes Tartarotti and Manfred Fischer. Sidney Sam (former Bundesliga star) and Frantz Pangop provided width and Daniel Nussbaumer was the centre-forward.
On the other side, Christian Ilzer used the typical 4-2-3-1 formation with Patrick Pentz in goal and Michael Madl teamed up with Erik Palmer-Brown (Manchester City loanee) in the central defence. Stefan Zwierschitz and Florian Klein completed the back four. Alexander Grünwald and Thomas Ebner played in front of the defence and Benedikt Pichler and Manprit Sarkaria were the wingers. Vesel Demaku was the offensive midfielder behind Christoph Monschein.
Tactical periods of the game
We will start this tactical analysis by quickly discussing how the game went down since we saw two completely different 45 minutes. In the first half, Altach was clearly the dominating side and also was in front at half-time due to the goal of Tartarotti in the 27th minute. In the first part of this analysis, we will look at the reasons for the poor performance of Austria Vienna during the first 45 minutes.
In the half-time, Ilzer made tactical changes and also brought on Maximilian Sax who heavily influenced the game as he helped his side to come back into the game with his aggression, understanding of the game and also scored the 1-1 in the 57th minute. We will focus on the period between the 45th minute and the goal by Sax in the second part of this analysis while the final 30 minutes of the game were more hectic and none of the teams was able to really dominate the game. 11 minutes ahead of the final whistle Edomwonyi scored the 2-1 for Austria Vienna, but still, we will look in the third and last section of this tactical analysis at the counter-attacks of both sides since we saw similar patterns on both sides throughout the game.
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