The LASK will meet FC Basel with new self-confidence. The Swiss, driven by their own audience, prevailed in the Champions League qualification against the favourite PSV Eindhoven. The day after the ascent, the Swiss media spoke of a “magical” European Cup night that had become rare.
Marcel Kollers experienced a “fantastic night”. In the words of the former ÖFB team leader, a portion of satisfaction also resonated on Tuesday evening. So he was right about his poker this weekend after all. He removed seven regulars from the first leg in a league game against St. Gallen. Basel lost 1:2, “verpokert” was the headline in the newspapers. “I just looked a little bit further ahead. In retrospect: That was the right way to go,” Koller stated with satisfaction.
On Tuesday, his troop won 2-1 against Eindhoven in front of almost 30,000 frenetic fans. They made up the 2:3 from the first leg and two late goals forgotten. The people of Basel set off a fireworks display “as announced by Koller”. At least that’s how the “BZ” commented on the rise. This will at least bring the Baslers participation in the Europa League – and thus rewards in the higher single-digit million range -.
“In the end, it was indeed one of those European Cup nights that had its own magic,” wrote the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Nights like those when the blatantly defeated Swiss made it to the Europa League quarter-finals in Salzburg in March 2014 with a 2-1 victory had become rare. But on Tuesday the players around Valentin Stocker and Fabian Frei ran into each other, threw themselves into the duels, followed and sprinted back dutifully.
“They pressed everything out of themselves, like a lemon,” Koller commented happily on the performance of his playfully inferior protégés. According to the 58-year-old, he had already sensed during the warm-up that it could be a special evening. So he gave the players the words: “Light the fire, take the spectators with you”.
The next European Cup Night will already take place on Wednesday in a week’s time under different auspices in Basel’s “Joggeli”. Against the LASK, the red blues are the favourite.
Austria’s runners-up LASK will play the first leg against former ÖFB coach Marcel Koller’s team on the 7th of August, before the Gugl will be the second leg a week later on the 13th of August in the Linz stadium.
