Ashbourne1899

I watched the game on Sunday, and from an outside perspective and view, the decision that Gishamer made for the “red card” was shameful. This type of card showing where a referee bases his decision on a players reaction, just shows weakness. A step back, calming players down and using his brain to evaluate what happened would have been the mature and correct way to go. The roll from Ballo belonged in a bad tv action series that is shown late at night on Sat1. Not sure of what the process there is now in the Bundesliga, but this needs to be overturned at least as it most definitely changed Rapid players mental strength and the direction of the game, only 5 minutes after Dion equalized. What happened with Gishamer on Sunday cannot be predicted. It was a shock, but mentality is one of the most important strengths to build at a big club like Rapid. You can clearly see from last November that it has risen and also dropped, with a lot of pressure in Bundesliga games. After all, Rapid must win the championship every year and there was the excellent start to the season. Sometimes I feel that there is a natural drop in performance level when the European campaign comes to an end. There just seems like a natural drop off as disappointment comes. Yesterday in Dublin, Rovers played our hated rival - bohemians - at home. We started slowly but found our rhythm and scored twice before half time. 2-0 at the break. Our players thought the job was done. We lost 3-2 with an embarrassing second half display where players decided they wanted to be somewhere else instead of playing to their strengths and pushing for a third goal. Form is temporary, but class is permanent. Rapid will be back, and so will we to Wien. I wish you the best against Blau Weiss tomorrow. A winnable game under normal circumstances. Thanks to Tom, Eva, Klaus & Horst last Thursday for their kindness and friendship. It was nice to get back and have some biers outside Schlurf before the game. Forza Rapid.

Congratulations on a fine win. It builds on the confidence that seems to be coming back into the team. The early goal from Matthias helped calm everybody, because sometimes in the derby, moments of chaos can change the result. Big performance by Sangare and he looked very pleased with his excellent goal. Ange and Kara also gave them lots to think about. In the end, it could have been more than 2-0. See you on Thursday. Forza Rapid. 💚🤍

Maybe the situation is better than originally expected……… https://abseits.at/fusball-international/conference-league/verletzungsmisere-rapid-gegner-djurgarden-gehen-die-spieler-aus/

Very much! 🤮

I wish the 1700 Rapidlers an excellent trip to Stockholm, a positive performance, at least one goal, and a good result to take back to Huttledorf for the second game next week. The “Zoo Animals” have an aggressive attitude about themselves. Their club sends out a “we are better than you” message most of the time, on and off the field of play. Sometimes their fans can just be unbearable. We have had experience of this at Rovers x 4 times over the last 20 years in Europe. They will not yet be fit, have had an ordinary start to the Allsvenskan with a win and a loss. They will also have some eyes on their derby game next Sunday against Hammarby, in between the two games, and so I believe Rapid can take advantage later in the second game next week. Daniel Stensson is missing for Djurgardens. He has been playing really well, and controlled the game against Paphos in Stockholm. He was best player that night. He also played very well opening league game against Malmo, but he will not player because he has three yellow cards in the knockout phase. It is a big plus for Rapid. I know Rapid will not allow the Swedes aggressive nature rule the game, and I hope fans and players stand tall. I expect two colourful, noisy and passionate games. I travel to Wien next week for the second game. Lucky to get a ticket through my good Rapid friend in the city. If you are looking for a place to have a bier or three, try Den gröne Jägaren bar. Gotgatan 64, Sodermalm. Viel Gluck!

Morgen. Danke for your hospitality last night. The whole evening was organized very well. Very impressive. Rapid Ultras and BlockWest members are one of the leaders in creating unique and important displays and choreo. Last night was superb 👏🏻 This game in WestStadion was the highest attended game in the competition last night. That tells me there was an appetite to come see both teams, and how important both clubs consider the success behind it, to be. Rovers brought one of the biggest away support to WedtStadion this year. We are very proud to have done so. It helped create a cutting atmosphere. The purple nonsense? Yes. Our colours are green and white hoops, and your display was to the point, and it told us all we needed to know. The colour and the shirt is awful. Fail. Gamesmanship? Who knows. It was decided by a club director. Many of us didn’t appreciate it at all and of course it was offensive in WestStadion. On the game, we expected Rapid to be razor sharp from the start. And so it was. You guys got your early goal - and we expected this - but Rapid failed to capitalize on a dominant first half. Yes, we had some luck with the ball hitting the post, but otherwise our two centre backs did control very well, the height of Beljo and cut him out of many Rapid attacking moves. Rapid over complicated many attacking plays. Especially on the right side. It was over played many times in small triangles between Seidl, Grgic and Sangare. This was not needed. Rapid needed to be more direct. Rapid had 72% of the ball in the 96 minutes but had only 3 shots on goal. Rovers also had 3 shots on goal. Our German boy in goal is a fine shot stopper and he has grown in confidence in defence. To say that Rovers cannot be taken seriously, and that we are basically a “pub team” is not realistic to say. Like understanding Rapid, it’s culture, it’s history…. We have much in common. Rovers have come a long way from being beaten 7-0 in the European Cup first round in 1994 in Poland. We have learned so much. We have learned not to be naive in game. We have learned to be tougher physically and mentally. We sat deep after Rapid scored. We were not prepared to be stupid and we wanted to see what else Rapid had in attack. We were happy at half time. Rapid completely dominated that first half, but we grew taller in the second period. To say we are “not serious” is completely incorrect. Our goal came from defence and it was passed through the Rapid midfield and out to our attacking full back who delivered a knockout pass to our young striker. A pub team would have kicked that ball into Row Z and taken a 1-0 defeat as a respectful thing. Dominating teams with possession is one thing - scoring goals more directly is another. we are very serious now about making position 10-12. Thank you again for your kindness, your friendship on here and for just being a great club in a beautiful city. I wish you good luck in Cyprus against Omonia. More green for you guys. I am going now with my wife downtown to do some shopping and bier drinking. If you pass the Irish idiot with the green and white Rovers scarf around his neck, please come and say or wave hello. Forza Rapid. Forza Hoops. 💚🤍⚽️

There was too much talk in Irish media of 7 points being enough. Some fans celebrated after the victory against TNS alike we have definitely made Top 24. I don’t believe this right now. We have Rapid and Ch£l$€a away from home, and we expect goal difference to come into play. This can knock us back down. We are situated very well right now, but as I said earlier today, tomorrow begins the difficult second phase of these games. We must not lose heavily. Many of us understand that 10 points is probably required to guarantee Top 24 and also give us a realistic place in the table so we have a chance in the knockout rounds. There is no point finishing in 24th position and losing badly against a much better side in the knockout round. The game in Dublin against Borac will be crucial.

The Wien Polizei are being strict (of course). They “recommend” us to stay in Bermudadreieck. I think Johnny’s Pub will be the place, and of course we are banned from exit at Huttledorf on U4 going to WestStadion. They take us a different way to the Gästeblock, which is annoying, because I would like to have a bier at Schlurf or Stags Head.

I expect Rapid to win. This is being realistic with the quality and value of our teams. How Rapid can do this, will be the real question. We have no pressure because we know already that this is the difficult second round of three games for us, with two away from home. We can play football, but I am sure that we will be concentrating on keeping space tight and trying to make sure Rapid do not have that space to put crosses into the box. If we can stop Rapid from scoring an early goal, we will relax and play on a perfect field, and hopefully in an electric atmosphere. We don’t plan on coming just to drink good bier. Prost. 💚🤍

We never said this. 😂😂😂 Good pot stirring though. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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You have never tried Irish stew…..

Real football fan here. Tourists go to London and Manchester in half/half scarves.

Danke! I have already experienced this and I look forward to coming back again!

Morgen. Hope you guys are well. The atmosphere is building nicely in advance of the game on Thursday. We now have over 700 fans coming to Wien. I posted this on X last weekend and I tagged official Rapid account and the post has had 19,000 views. There is a lot of interest! The two “test-spiel” games against HJK did no go so well. We had two injuries early in the first game and two of our midfield players left the game. Yes, our German goalkeeper made a terrible mistake to give HJK that first goal, but we are happy he did that there and not in WestStadion. He is an excellent shot stopper, and so the contest between Beljo and him will be interesting. We relaxed after the first half of the first game because we have had terrible injury problems start of our season and it was in the managers mind not to risk any more in advance of the game on Thursday. Of course we expect a tough 90 minutes in Huttledorf. We do not have a view that we are “world beaters”, but we can play. We might even surprise you guys. Our first and most important job will be to make sure we do not make any mistakes. This is Irish teams “calling card”. A well known fact. Too many free gifts. So this has to be the platform from the start of the game. I expect we will be compact until we feel we have settled down into the game. It will be up to Rapid to push the buttons to score first and open the game up. We have played difficult games already this season in Europe, so the feeling will not be new. We played good football in Thessaloniki against PAOK in the Europa League QR3 and we had some chances to score. It was 0-0 at 45 minutes and PAOK were worried, but we scored a spectacular own goal in injury time and after that we lost 4-0. In Praha against Sparta in the Champions League QR2 we were 0-2 and played football, and we took it back to 2-2. We eventually lost 4-2 but it was a really good attacking performance. We accept our place in football, but we never like being compared to League One in England. We lose too many players on short contracts to that league because of agents work and better salaries. We are the biggest club in Ireland, and this period in our history is the richest in our European games. We have never been more successful. We try to play football and We look for respect in these games and we know we are trying to earn this. Our budgets are small compared to our bigger opponents. Our best player this season - Dylan Watts - won Irish Player of The Year at the weekend. It was voted by all players across the league. He will be important for us on Thursday and it will be another interesting battle between Sangare and him to try to get onto the ball. We will have to be strong defending Rapids crosses into the box. Let’s see. We want to give you a real game in WestStadion and not just to sit behind the ball for 90 minutes. Really looking forward to coming back to Wien now and if we can, some of us will try to get to have a beer or two with some of you with a little bit of luck. We can talk and raise a glass to the Grun Weiss.