Our 2-0 away win at FC Dynamo Kyiv was very valuable, but we remain only halfway through the tie. We have to put in another showing that is at least as good over 90 minutes in Salzburg next Tuesday to make the UEFA Champions League.
A look at the stats shows that we can be rightly proud though of our excellent position at this stage of the tie.
- A two-goal lead in the first leg of a European knockout clash has seen us progress in 14 of the past 15 ties. Only in the third UEFA Champions League qualifying round of 2015/16 against Malmö FF did we see such a lead slip.
- Dynamo Kyiv suffered just their fourth competitive defeat in 18 meetings with Austrian opposition. The first three times an Austrian team beat them, it was SK Rapid.
- In all 12 of their European knockout clashes when they lost a first leg by two goals or more, Dynamo have exited.
- One of our stars of the season so far, Moussa Yeo, who UEFA named Player of the Match, had his seventh goal involvement of the season so far with his assist for our opening goal (three goals and four assists). That is the joint best of all Austrian Bundesliga sides together with a certain Maurits Kjaergaard.
- On the subject of Maurits Kjaergaard - the Dane had been a bit of an assist master, but has now turned into a goalgetter, with his fifth goal in his seventh competitive match of the season. He has therefore scored just as much in this season already as the past two seasons combined.
- Youth triumphed! The average age of our two starting line-ups differed by around four years. While we started with an average age of 22 and 360 days, Dynamo's all-Ukrainian line-up had 26 years and 315 days on average. We got even younger too with the introduction of 17-year-old Oliver Lukic, who made his competitive debut for our Red Bulls.
- Sprinting to victory! On average our boys outran the opposition by 300 metres (12.09 km to 11.79 km). The top runner on the pitch was Mads Bidstrup, with 13.94 kilometres run.
That is my job! Our attack is so powerful that I have to work a bit behind them in our system, and all the running really helps. I will do anything for this team!
This Tuesday 27 August, the all-decisive second leg will be contested in Salzburg as one of the two sides will claim a spot in the UEFA Champions League. We need your full support in that! Tickets are already on sale:
