Panevezys has been archived, the next rival of Vojvodina is the Austrian LASK. In the third round of qualifications for the Conference League, the Old Lady will first host LASK on Thursday, August 5, and then seven days later she will play at the Lincer stadium.
LASK was founded back in 1908, and the abbreviation LASK is from Linzer Athletic-Sport-Club. LASK plays in black and white jerseys, which are also the colors of the coat of arms of the Austrian club. LASK plays at two stadiums in its city, the mentioned Lincer was renovated in 2012 and with 21,005 seats it serves for European matches, while in domestic competitions, the team from Linz plays at the far smaller Raiffeisen Arena.
According to the data of Transfermarkt, the value of the current team from Linz is estimated at as much as 32.08 million euros. The head coach of the team is the Austrian Dominik Thalhammer, who knows the club very well, because he was also the assistant coach, later the sports director, and now he is the Manager.
His team is mostly composed of domestic players, although there are several foreigners – Croatian Petar Filipović, French Mamoudou Karamoko and Yannis Letard, German Jan Boller, Swiss Enrique Wild, Australian James Holland and Hyun-seok Hong from South Korea.
In its rich history, LASK was the champion of Austria only once, back in 1965, when it also won its only national Cup trophy. LASK was the runner-up of Austria on only two more occasions, in 1962 and 2019.
In Europe, LASK does not have a rich experience. In this century they played only four times in the qualifications, but all four times from 2018 to 2021 and on two occasions they reached the group stage of the Europa League.
The most successful season in Europe was 2019/20, when LASK was first in its group of the Europa League, ahead of Sporting Lisbon, PSV Eindhoven and Rosenborg. It then eliminated AZ Alkmaar, but lost to Manchester United in the Round of 16 (0-5, 1-2).
Last season, LASK also played in the group stage of the Europa League, but it was eliminated in the group stage as the third-placed team behind Tottenham, Antwerpen, and ahead of Ludogorets. However, it should be noted that LASK won as many as 10 points in the difficult group and was left without a second round due to a worse goal difference than Antwerpen.
All in all, this is a far more serious, experienced and high-quality opponent than the Lithuanian Panevezys. LASK plays in an 3-4-3 offensive formation, but it should be noted that LASK, like Vojvodina, has just started the season. Only one round was played in the Austrian Admiral League, and LASK celebrated at the start against CASHPOINT SCR Altach with the result 1-0.
The first game on the program is on Thursday at 7 pm at the Karađorđe stadium.