Rapid Vienna remains winless in Conference League: Defeat against Universitatea Craiova worsens crisis

SK Rapid continues to struggle in this year's league phase of the Football Conference League. The team of Rapid coach Peter Stöger lost deservedly 0:1 (0:1) on Thursday evening in front of 23,500 spectators in Vienna-Hütteldorf against Universitatea Craiova from Romania. The winning goal for the guests was scored by Oleksandr Romanchuk (37th minute). For the Green-Whites, it was the third defeat in the third game, and they now sit at the bottom of the CoL standings.

For Rapid, the European Cup continues in three weeks with an away game in Poland against Raków Czestochowa. The still unbeaten Poles have already collected five points after three rounds. First, however, the Viennese will travel to Innsbruck next Sunday (2:30 PM) to face WSG Tirol.

Card Festival in the First Half

Stöger made four changes to his starting eleven compared to the 2:1 victory against Sturm Graz and switched from a three-man to a four-man defense. The Rapid coach initially left the injured Nenad Cvetkovic, Romeo Amane, and Furkan Demir, as well as Janis Antiste, on the bench. Instead, Jonas Auer, Lukas Grgic, Tobias Gulliksen, and Andrija Radulovic were allowed to start.

The hosts did not start well in the match. Nikolaus Wurmbrand received a yellow card after 50 seconds, and Bendeguz Bolla saw the same card less than three minutes later. The Slovenian referee Martin Matosa took a strict line, which both teams initially struggled with. The result: five cautioned players (four of them from Rapid) and a yellow-red card for the Romanian coach Mirel Radoi after just 20 minutes of play. The coach had repeatedly been noticed complaining on the sidelines and had verbally attacked Gulliksen, among others (20th minute).

While the Viennese acted too error-prone, the guests carried out their attacks straightforwardly. Alexandru Cicaldau failed to score from a turn against goalkeeper Paul Gartler (5th minute). Romanchuk did better, scoring with a header. Before that, Carlos Mora had outplayed left-back Auer and crossed perfectly into the penalty area (37th minute). On the other side, Kara narrowly missed with a header (39th minute). Auer was again the second-best against Mora, who nutmegged his opponent. However, striker Steven Nsimba shot over the goal (41st minute). Rapid was lucky with a second guest goal as Craiova's Assad Al-Hamlawi was offside (43rd minute).

Rapid Fell Short

Rapid continued to make mistakes in the second half, leading to good opportunities for the Romanians. Gartler was on the spot against Nsimba, and Samuel Teles missed the follow-up shot (55th minute). Stöger responded after an hour with a triple substitution. The substituted Antiste immediately made an impact but failed to score from five meters against Universitatea keeper Pavlo Isenko (63rd minute).

The match picked up pace: Nsimba again failed to get the ball past Gartler (65th minute). Even six minutes later, the Rapid goalkeeper was unbeatable, with Teles and the newly substituted Lyes Houri and Stefan Baiaram each failing (71st minute). The Hütteldorfers, on the other hand, also fell short offensively - Antiste (80th minute), Seidl (82nd minute), and Bolla (84th minute) were too inaccurate in the final phase - and deservedly left the field as losers.

(APA/Red)

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