"We're already in a pretty good position at this stage of our preparations," said Andi Schicker on the way to Windischgarsten for the test match against AS Monaco. And rightly so. The pieces of the puzzle in the championship-winning squad are slowly but surely falling into place. David Affengruber has been replaced by Emanuel Aiwu in the defensive center, "we've also kept Kiteishvili and signed Biereth on a permanent basis," says Schicker proudly. "And we are also well prepared for the departure of Prass with Zvonarek and Chukwuani in attacking midfield."

After a seven-month break due to injury and his last competitive match on December 14, 2023 in the Europa League at Sporting Lisbon, regular keeper Kjell Scherpen was back in the Sturm goal for the first time yesterday. The Dutchman had no chance against ex-Salzburg star Minamino's penalty, but otherwise the tall keeper was on the ball. After Willi Böving had given his side the lead and Monegasque had equalized in the meantime, Mika Biereth gave them the lead again with a penalty before the break. In the end, the scoreboard showed 2:2.

After the test match against the million-strong team from the Principality, Sturm remain in top match rhythm: Tuesday they face Portuguese top club and Champions League permanent guest FC Porto - this match will also be broadcast live on krone.TV.

Favorite was one size too big
GAK have to face Velden in their first competitive match as a Bundesliga team in the ÖFB Cup on Friday and are the clear favorites in Carinthia. On Saturday, the Athletics were the clear underdogs in their dress rehearsal - in Lannach, they faced Turkish first division side Besiktas Istanbul in a closed-door match. The 21-time champions boast players of the caliber of Ciro Immobile (353 games and 201 goals in Serie A, 13 goals in 23 games in the Champions League) and Gedson Fernandes (currently worth around 15 million euros on the market).

GAK even took a surprising lead through Michael Lang. However, the "Red Jackets" had woken up a sleeping giant - after just under 25 minutes, the favorites were already clearly 4:1 ahead. In the end, the Besiktas players celebrated a commanding 5:1 victory.

"Pretty good in many phases"
Hartberg kick off their campaign next Friday with the cup game in Bischofshofen. Saturday was the dress rehearsal against Rukh Lviv. After a decent performance, they still lost 2-0 against the sixth-placed team in the first Ukrainian league, who had already beaten Sturm 4-1. "We were quite good in many phases," said coach Markus Schopp, who was not dissatisfied, "but we still need to improve in the final zone. But we've come a long way in the last few weeks."

Neo-striker Patrick Mijic (who was present like the additions Omoregie and Amadin) had four shots but failed to score: "Hopefully he's saved it for the competition games," hopes Schopp, who is very happy with the Croatian so far: "He gives us an element in our game that we haven't had yet."

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