Out of luck as we bow out of Europa League

2-3 defeat at Aston Villa

Football can do these things to you. After we raced into a sensational 2-0 lead at a formiddable Aston Villa side to go close to making the knockout stages, our good performance was cancelled out by the top-class opponents as we lost 2-3 and saw our 2025/26 European journey end.

Match summary

You could sense some nerves from our Red Bulls was palpable, especially considering we fielded the second-youngest starting XI in the competition's history in a packed Premier League stadium against one of the title favourites. A long-range shot from Watkins in the first minute almost caught Alex Schlager off guard before the Austrian national team goalkeeper was able to make the save.

After nearly ten minutes, we shook off our initial nerves, gradually found our rhythm with improved build-up play, and found several chances to take the lead – but the attempts by Konate, Diabate and Baidoo were all thwarted by the English defence (20').

As the game then drifted along a little, we struck out of nowhere! Mings carelessly lost possession in his own penalty area, and Baidoo, who won the ball, squared it to Konate, who finished to give us the lead – as fortunately for us, an attempted clearance off the line also failed (33').

The second half was incredibly tense as the chance of advancing to the knockout stages of the UEFA Europa League remained alive. Despite our half-time lead, we were still in 25th place and just one position shy of making it due to the results in the other matches. We had to hold onto for the points while also hoping for help from other teams.

We were determined to do our part of the equation! Thomas Letsch made a shrewd substitution as the second half was barely three minutes old when the newly substituted Moussa Yeo slotted home an Alajbegovic cross with a backheel to make it 2-0 (48').

While we kept a close eye on the live standings, our Red Bulls were increasingly focused on defending as the home side upped the pressure. We continued to offer some attacking threat though and even had the next top chance. After a superb pass from Diabate, Kitano unfortunately fired his shot wide (60').

Just moments later came the blow of Aston Villa pulling one back through Rogers after a well-worked move (64').

A long 25 minutes were ahead of us as the Villans had shifted into another gear, and our defence was under immense pressure. In the 76th minute, we finally succumbed. The towering figure of Tyrone Mings got to a Cash cross ahead of Schlager and headed home the equaliser, sending the home crowd into raptures (76').

The calculations eventually became pointless. As we threw everything forward in the closing stages, Aston Villa sealed the 3-2 victory with a counter-attack in the 87th minute. Despite a good performance from our lads, it wasn't enough to claim points in Birmingham, and therefore not enough to advance.

Now we turn our attention directly to the cup quarter-final this Sunday away against WAC at 17:30 CET.

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Match data

Line-ups & substitutions

Aston Villa: Martinez – Bogarde, Lindelöf, Mings, Digne – Hemmings (46. Cash), Onana (66. Konsa) – Sancho (79. Young), Elliott, Buendia (66. Jimoh-Aloba) – Watkins (35. Rogers)FC Salzburg: Schlager – Trummer, Gadou, Schuster, Krätzig – Diabate (89. Lukic) – Bidstrup ©, Kitano (89. Kjaergaard) – Baidoo (73. Onisiwo), Konate (46. Yeo), Alajbegovic (73. Bischoff)

Goals: Rogers (64.), Mings (76.), Jimoh-Aloba (87.) - Konate (33.), Yeo (49.)Attendance: Info to followReferee: Rohit Saggi (NOR)Yellow cards: Trummer (35./Foul)

Injury news

• Not available for the match were Takumu Kawamura (knee), John Mellberg (thigh) and Valentin Sulzbacher (calf). Yorbe Vertessen was also absent due to illness.