Red Bull Salzburg are all but guaranteed a place in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League after sweeping aside HB Tórshavn of the Faroe Islands 5–0 at the Red Bull Arena on Tuesday.
In the first of two legs – the second is back at the Gundadalur Stadium in the small island nation’s capital Tórshavn next Tuesday, July 20 – Salzburg showed much of the flair that characterised their title-winning Austrian Bundesliga season and Europa League adventure – in which they won their group with six wins from six – in 2009–10.
With EC Red Bull Salzburg, the local ice hockey heroes, in attendance, as well as the players of German soccer side RB Leipzig, taking time out from a training camp in the area, the local soccer stars were keen to make an impression on their new grass pitch.
Encouragingly for the side that lost Marc Janko, their striker of 75 goals in 108 matches, to Dutch champions FC Twente last month, there were five different men on the scoresheet in the match, three of them new signings in Gonzalo Zárate, who scored the Red Bulls’ first goal, Jakob Jantscher the second and Stefan Hierländer, the exciting 19-year-old prospect, a late fifth, with Andreas Ulmer and Roman Wallner scoring numbers three and four in the interim.
‘That was a brilliant start – better than we could have hoped’ – Huub Stevens
Despite the hot, muggy conditions in Austria, the Red Bulls began purposefully and had the Faroe Islands Premier League champions on the back foot, and though it took 21 minutes for Zárate to open his Salzburg account from an Ulmer cross, the Red Bulls were 2–0 up by half-time courtesy of Jantscher’s strike from a Dušan Švento cross and took just 40 seconds of the second period to make it three, as Ulmer himself looped the ball over the HB goalkeeper from 25m. Wallner, who had earlier struck the upright of HB’s goal, got his just reward with the fourth goal before Hierländer made it five, just seven minutes into his debut and eight from full-time.
Red Bulls coach Huub Stevens was delighted with the result, and with his new signings, which also include the summer’s number one transfer target, Dutch international David Mendes da Silva, captured from Eredivisie club AZ Alkmaar last week.
“That was a brilliant start – better than we could have hoped,” Huub commented. “We combined really well and finished our chances well. The new players were there straight away. It was really very positive.”
Huub still sees room for improvement, but credits their pre-season with giving the side the right tools to find solutions.
“I saw a few weaknesses today,” the Dutchman admitted. “With this result, I can see the way forward though. We deliberately played against very strong teams in the pre-season and we didn’t score many as a result. We could have chosen to play friendlies against weak opponents and score 10 goals but that would not have given us anything.”
You can watch the goals below!
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