Recap
Spoils shared against Wals-Grünau
SV Wals-Grünau 1-1 (1-0) FC Pinzgau Saalfelden; Schnöll (14), Joao Pedro (64)
FC Pinzgau Saalfelden came from behind to claim a 1-1 draw with SV Wals-Grünau on Saturday afternoon.
The men from Saalfelden showed great momentum at the outset, quickly putting the opposition under pressure and attempting to pose a threat going forward. In the opening stages, Schwaighofer got the better of his marker down the right flank but failed to pick out a team-mate with his square ball into the danger zone. The home side then converted their first chance against the run of play. Christian Schnöll was played in with a textbook pass and coolly slotted home to make it 1-0. The Ziege crew remained unperturbed, however, and immediately took back control of the match, resulting in a header for Felix Adjei that narrowly missed the target and a gilt-edged double chance: Volkan Akyildiz first failed to slot home a cross from Joao Pedro, then Lukas Moosmann missed the ball by inches at the back post following a pass from the opposite flank. Wals-Grünau twice threatened in the closing stages of the first half, with FCPS goalie Kilian Schröcker first intervening to intercept a square ball and then getting slightly lucky as an SVWG lob missed the target.
Little changed in the second 45 minutes. While FCPS continued to look the livelier team, Wals-Grünau appeared content to defend and waited for opportunities to strike on the counter-attack. The Mountainous Pine Blues’ first major chance of the second period came shortly after the hour mark, when Niklas Seiler picked out Tamas Tandari with a cross towards the back post. But the attacker was caught slightly by surprise and could only deflect the ball on to the past via his knee. The breakthrough finally came in the 64th minute though, with another attack culminating in Joao Pedro finding the back of the net to make it 1-1. The visitors tried everything in their power in the final 20 minutes to turn the tide in their favour – but to no avail. Lukas Moosmann was then sent for an early bath after being shown a second yellow card in the closing stages. Both teams had chances to score a winner but it would not come and the spoils were ultimately shared in a 1-1 draw.
STATEMENT
“We didn’t go about our business too badly today. Our goal was to create advantages for ourselves on the left side of their defence – we managed that quite well apart from the final ball. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capitalise on it; we were not clinical enough to make that decisive pass into the middle. We had chances to win throughout the game, but Wals-Grünau had their opportunities too. We’ll take the point. We now need to dust ourselves down and move on,” said FCPS coach Christian Ziege.
LINE-UP
Schröcker; Mühlbacher, Tandari, Ziege, Adjei; Moosmann; Schwaighofer, Joao Pedro, Seiler (Ocampo-Chavez, 62), Fürstaller (Handlechner, 82); Akyildiz (Kitahara, 84)
Red card: Moosmann (83)