Spectacular end-of-season Klassiker win | OneFootball

Bundesliga season ends with strong second place

That'll do! We took a 4-2 win in our final match of the Bundesliga season against Rapid Vienna in the Austrian Klassiker to move up to second place in the table - thanks to results going our way in the two other championship group matches, and sending us into 2025/26 UEFA Champions League qualifying. Congratulations to Sturm Graz, who have retained their ADMIRAL Bundesliga title!

Match summary

Despite a few changes to our line-up, we set the tone from the start and blasted our way into an early two-goal lead. Oscar Gloukh curled a shot wonderfully into the top corner after Ratkov turned out to him on the left, and Niklas Hedl could only watch it nestle in (8'). The visitors tried to look for a response, but we pressed on. Petar Ratkov was brought down on his way towards the area, and Dorgeles Nene made the most of the advantage the official indicated by converting our second.

An unfortunate moment then allowed the Green and Whites back into the game (for a short while at least). Joane Gadou attempted to clear but only kneed the ball into the path of Radulovic, who pulled back for 1-2 (19').

Our Red Bulls were not going to be knocked out of their stride today though and promptly added another. This time, Nene sent his attacking partner Edmund Baidoo through on goal with a perfect ball through the defence, and the 19-year-old from Ghana converted confidently (24').

The jubilant atmosphere was reminiscent of our superb finish to last season, when we saw off LASK 7-1 at our Red Bull Arena. Around the 30-minute mark we saw the first phase in which Rapid stretched our defence for several minutes as Alex Schlager saved a decent effort from distance - but we held our own and kept the 3-1 lead intact at the break.

The second half started in similarly spectacular fashion. Mads Bidstrup (48') had a chance for a fourth goal before Alex Schlager pulled off another strong save and Samson Baidoo hooked the ball away from the goal line (50'). It took another ten minutes for our goal music to sound again as Dorgeles Nene sent a delicious chip over the Rapid goalkeeper after Schlager had played a long ball forward to Ratkov, who headed through to the Malian.

The visitors responded again as we gifted them too much space in the 63rd minute and Guido Burgstaller was able to smash the ball in the final match of his career into the top corner. The goal gave the Green and Whites courage and made them more dangerous in certain situations, but we took the 4-2 lead towards the finishing line well.

One more highlight to mention in the action-packed encounter. Red Bull Academy graduate Jannik Schuster made his debut for our Red Bulls from the bench and almost grabbed a goal straight away. Despite a few more chances, most of which came our way, there was no further change on the scoreboard.

Our league season therefore ended on a good note, but it the season is far from finished! After a quick international break, we are heading to the FIFA Club World Cup in the USA from 13 June.

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Thomas Letsch

Samson Baidoo

Line-up

Substitutions

Onisiwo for Ratkov (68'), Daghim for E. Baidoo (68'), Vertessen for Gloukh (68'), Schuster for Mellberg (77'), Sulzbacher for Trummer (89')

Yellow cards

None

Injury news