Battle for Europe
Austria wins the 350th derby and overtakes Rapid
Following the 350th Vienna soccer derby, Rapid and Austria have swapped positions in the standings. On Sunday, Austria won 2-0 (1-0) in Hütteldorf in the penultimate round of the championship group and now occupies fourth place.
Rapid, which ends the 2025/26 season without a derby win, is in fifth place, two points behind. Next Sunday, the Green-Whites must face Sturm Graz, who are still fighting to successfully defend their title. Austria hosts league leader LASK.
Sanel Saljic headed in the opening goal for the visitors in the 9th minute—it was the forward’s first goal in the Bundesliga. Austria then dropped back and ceded control to Rapid, but the Hütteldorf side couldn’t capitalize on it, managing hardly any successful attacking moves. In the 60th minute, Austria extended their lead to 2-0 thanks to an own goal by Serge-Philippe Raux-Yao (Tin Plavotic was initially listed as the official scorer). The score remained that way until the end, prompting a chorus of boos from the Rapid fans. The Greens could theoretically still finish third, however.
Early goal put Rapid under pressure
Rapid started with a good chance when, in the 3rd minute, Petter Nosa Dahl, after a pass from Bolla, hit only Samuel Sahin-Radlinger from a tight angle. The home team, with Andreas Weimann and the recently suspended Nenad Cvetkovic returning to the starting lineup, pushed hard offensively in the opening minutes, but Austria didn’t hold back either. In the 9th minute, the visitors skillfully outmaneuvered their opponents following a corner kick. Manfred Fischer crossed unmarked from the right; Saljic, equally unmarked in the middle, beat Niklas Hedl in the Rapid goal.
The lead fit perfectly into the Violets’ game plan; they were now able to drop back slightly and lie in wait for mistakes from the Green-Whites, which kept occurring. In the 30th minute, Austria goal-scorer Saljic had already outpaced Jakob Schöller but was stopped inside the penalty area by Cvetkovic in accordance with the rules. Hedl made a save in the 41st minute against Johannes Eggestein, who was, however, offside. Rapid posed only a limited goal threat: Jannes Horn (23rd) missed the target shortly before being substituted due to injury. Nikolaus Wurmbrand came on for the German. In the 34th minute, Janis Antiste headed the ball just wide of the goal.
Austria stepped up the pressure after the break
Rapid went into the locker room with nearly 75 percent possession, before a tribute was paid during halftime to numerous members of the team that reached the 1996 European Cup Winners’ Cup final in Brussels against Paris Saint-Germain. Ernst Dokupil, Rapid’s successful coach at the time, and former president Günther Kaltenbrunner were also in attendance at the sold-out Allianz Stadium, which held 25,500 spectators.
The current Rapid team continued to struggle after that, but their play in the attacking third lacked concreteness and was often too imprecise. In the 52nd minute, it was Raux-Yao who failed to get a proper header on a free-kick cross. Hedl (59th) was just able to deflect a rocket from Philipp Maybach from distance into a corner. Raux-Yao deflected the next corner, taken by Lee Tae-seok, into his own net. After that, Austria was back in the game, winning the decisive duels. For Rapid, bringing on Ercan Kara and Yusuf Demir didn’t have the desired effect on the attack. Demir (89th) failed to beat Sahin-Radlinger in a one-on-one, but the play was called offside.
Rapid thus suffered their third derby defeat of the season. Most recently, in the 2021/22 season, there had not been a single Green-White victory in a derby; back then, however, all matches ended 1-1.
SK Rapid – FK Austria Vienna 0–2 (0–1)
Vienna, Allianz Stadium, 25,500 (sold out), Referee Weinberger.
Goals:
0–1 (9') Saljic
0–2 (60') Raux-Yao (own goal)
Rapid: Hedl – Schöller (65. Y. Demir), Cvetkovic, Raux-Yao – Bolla, Amane, Lu. Grgic (82. Gulliksen), Horn (25. Wurmbrand) – Antiste (65. Kara), Weimann, Dahl
Austria: Sahin-Radlinger – Wiesinger (56. Handl), Dragovic, Plavotic – Ranftl, Barry (92. Ndukwe), Maybach (80. Wustinger), Lee T. – Fischer, Eggestein (80. Markovic), Saljic (56. Boateng)
Yellow cards: none, and Ranftl, Dragovic
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