.... to justify, at least part , of the massive Red Bull investment. With a huge coaching staff, led by Giovanni Trappatoni and Lothar Matthaus, to say nothing of Franz Beckenbaur, on board as advisor. Their salary bill must be enormous and that's without paying the players !
Plenty of experience and potential on the pitch too, with a dozen or so signings, including Nico Kovac, Alexander Zickler, Vratislav Lokvenc, Johan Vonlanthen, Thomas Linke etc etc. The proposed signings of Ronaldo and Nedved, never came off, but money is obviously not a problem.
They were 2-0 down in the first leg in Zurich in just 20 minutes, after pulling a goal back, they were reduced to 10 men, for the final hour. The Swiss side spurned several chances to further their lead and I feel they will live to regret those misses.
Salzburg play on an artificial pitch and that is a big advantage, this obviously worries Zurich who have spent several days training on one in Switzerland. Not sure if this will help, as I do not think I have ever seen two identical artificial surfaces, they all seem to react differently.
The Austrians ( someone at the club must be Austrian, maybe the lady who sells the coffee) have a stronger team available tonight and are telling all, who will listen, that they will be "up for it". Some quotes below.......
Trappatoni:"We'll be putting the Swiss team under pressure! We'll be aiming to take the upper hand from the very beginning and to score a goal as quickly as possible. The game against Zürich is one of at least 180 minutes in total, that's to say we've lost the first half 1:2 – and now it's the second half, and we have every opportunity! If we concede a goal, it could make things very difficult for us."
Ochs: "This will be the most important match in my short career, I'm sure of that. We have a great opportunity to go through and will have to turn things around. The result in Zurich doesn't really reflect how poorly we played – we all know that. We weren't aggressive enough, and that's definitely going to change in Salzburg."
Matthäus: "We are very happy that Alex Zickler is scoring goals at the moment and is on good form. We are raring to go – the team has a big responsibility to the fans as well and we will be wide awake from the very beginning. We have to apply the pressure right from the start and show who's boss in the arena!"
Like I said, they really have to get this win and go through, a meeting with Valencia awaits and a continued european campaign, which will please the sponsor, the stadium has been sold out for many days (16,200) and they can cheer Salzburg on to the expected victory.
4 points Salzburg -1/2 1.97 asian line.
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