Goal Festival: LASK Secures Top Spot in Qualification Group

The match almost began with a dream start for the Athletiker. Less than a minute in, Maximilian Entrup broke through on goal after a through ball from Robert Zulj, rounded goalkeeper Simon Spari, but had the ball nicked away at the last moment. This action set the tone for the rest of the first half. From the start, LASK was superior in every aspect, enjoying more than 70 percent possession and consistently finding creative ways to break down the Klagenfurt defense. Lining up once again in a 3-4-3 formation, the Linz side tried to keep the tempo high and looked for vertical solutions.

In the 23rd minute, Zulj had a shot inside the box but it was blocked. The same fate befell Krystof Danek shortly after, before the breakthrough finally came in the 26th minute: Ismaila Coulibaly found Danek with a perfect pass into the right half-space, Danek then set up Sascha Horvath, who — just like in the first leg on Tuesday — scored the opening goal for the Black-and-Whites. Only two minutes later, Danek narrowly missed, hitting the side netting. But just before the halftime whistle, the goal anthem rang out again in the Raiffeisen Arena: A perfect long ball from Andrade over the defense found Florian Flecker, who powered through and made it 2–0 in the 42nd minute.

The break did nothing to dampen LASK’s joy for attacking football and scoring goals — if anything, the second half continued in the same dominant fashion, even though the visitors made three substitutions at halftime. In the 60th minute, Linz picked up right where they left off: another perfectly timed long ball from Andrade found Entrup, who got to the ball before Spari and, from a tight angle, netted his 11th goal of the season to make it 3–0. Just five minutes later, Ismaila Coulibaly was able to celebrate his first goal in a Black-and-White shirt. After a corner and a blocked shot, he converted the rebound to extend the lead to 4–0.

But LASK showed no signs of slowing down or simply seeing the game out. Instead, they continued to play lively attacking football, creating chance after chance. In the 72nd minute, Robert Zulj added the fifth goal, firing a volley into the far corner at the second attempt. Shortly after, Mohamed Sanogo celebrated his Bundesliga debut, and substitute Samuel Adeniran also got his name on the scoresheet for the first time in the Austrian top flight, rounding out the scoring at 6–0 in the 83rd minute. In the end, LASK celebrated their biggest Bundesliga win since a 6–0 triumph over WSG Tirol on March 13, 2022. At the same time, the Black-and-Whites officially secured first place in the Qualification Group and their spot in the Europa Conference League playoff semifinal.

LASK – SK Austria Klagenfurt 6:0 (2:0)
Raiffeisen Arena, 9600, Referee Alexander Harkam
Goals: 1:0 Horvath (26.), 2:0 Flecker (42.), 3:0 Entrup (60.), 4:0 Coulibaly (65.), 5:0 Zulj (72.), 6:0 Adeniran (83.)
Yellow Cards: Andrade; Bennetts, Koch, Cvetko

Line-up LASK: Lawal (K) – Cisse (74. Smolcic), Andrade, Boateng – Flecker, Horvath (74. Sanogo), Coulibaly, Bello – Danek (67. Lang), Entrup (67. Adeniran), Zulj (84. Bogarde)