Sasa Kalajdzic’s 79th-minute goal secured the victory for Austria over the Republic of Ireland at the Raiffeisen Arena on Saturday night, yet the aftermath of a heated Nations League contest focused on the striker’s earlier clash with Dara O’Shea.
“[O’Shea] said I elbowed him and I said he pulled me back and that’s why I was in a weird position,” Kalajdzic told RTÉ. “Also, I am a little taller than him so my arm was in an awkward position for him. But it wasn’t with bad intention or not on purpose. I told him that and he said ‘I just felt your elbow.’ Obviously, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson did not see the elbow incident but he did take issue with Romano Schmid’s heavy challenge on O’Shea in the 30th minute that prompted Bosnian referee Irfan Peljto to show the Austrian midfielder a yellow card.
“I was on a few occasions, let’s say, unhappy with the referee in this game,” said Hallgrímsson. “I need to see [the Kalajdzic incident again] but I thought [Schmid’s tackle on O’Shea] was a red card. I am not going to go into the refereeing but there were a lot of things that could have been done better.
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“We probably had six, seven chances to score. I am happy that we created but you are always unhappy to lose the game. But there are positives, we pressed them, got on the front foot. Everything we asked of the players they did.
“At this level, there was one moment, and we lost the game.”
The result means that Austria will top the group and secure promotion to League A. Ireland can finish second by beating Kosovo in Dublin on Tuesday.
“I think the front three [Troy Parrott, Adam Idah and Jack Moylan] were really good,” Hallgrímsson continued. “Sometimes you were watching a basketball game. There was a danger both from fatigue but also from how the game was.
“I though Chiedozie [Ogbene’s] chance drew an incredible save [from Alexander Schlager].
“We’re not happy losing but the performance but I have to give credit to the players. The key message after this game is that we need to have the same energy, the same positivity, the same belief in what we’re doing when we play Kosovo in two days.”
There is a concern about the fitness of Ireland captain Nathan Collins, who returned to the team after several weeks nursing a calf injury.
“Nathan hurt something in his knee when he fell down. Hopefully it’s nothing. But we need to be careful. He’s coming back from an injury so we’ll just send him to a scan tomorrow to be safe.”
