In an exciting game for spectators, USC Wallern literally fought their way to a 2:2 tie with SC Kittsee in a 97 minute slugfest. Wallern have always played dirty. Last year Wallern couldn’t stop Kittsee speedster Michal Slezak so they gave him a concussion instead and knocked him out of the game. The yellow card didn’t matter to them. Gattendorf complain about playing against Wallern as well: they’ve lost players to injury too. Kittsee did well to come out injury free this match.
That’s not to say Wallern’s tactics weren’t effective. Kittsee coach for the evening Markus Roth felt compelled to pull Patrick Dietmann at 2:1 as Dietmann was so angry about being repeatedly fouled. I can’t really blame the referee Arif Erdem: he called many yellow cards and couldn’t have his eyes everywhere. It would take a league season ban on some Wallern players to bring them under control. There’s little video at these games so it’s hard to police deliberate dangeous behaviour meaningfully.
Kittsee jumped out to an early lead which they maintained until 67 minutes. Kittsee fought hard for the go-ahead goal but Wallern was able to hold them off. While it was a pity to lose those two points, the fight in Kittsee’s team until the end was a good augur.
