FCA defeat Newcastle United in pre-season friendly

The conclusion of Augsburg’s second training camp came in the form of a pre-season friendly in England, with Manuel Baum’s squad having travelled to Newcastle from Innsbruck on Friday. FCA defeated the Premier League side 1-0 after a goalless first half. Manuel Baum brought 20 players with him to England, with all players who had an injury travelling back to Augsburg from Austria, in order to be treated or to train. The missing players included Alfred Finnbogason, Ja-Cheol Koo, Caiuby, Kosta Stafylidis, Martin Hinteregger and Sergio Córdova. Andreas Luthe was given the chance to play in goal after Fabian Giefer was given a go in the previous friendly against Mönchengladbach, a decision which Manuel Baum made public during the training camp. The defence comprised of Philipp Max, Jan-Ingwer Callsen-Bracker, Jeffrey Gouweleeuw and Jonathan Schmid. Marco Richter, Daniel Baier, Rani Khedira, Michael Gregoritsch and Andre Hahn played in midfield ahead of Dong-Won Ji, a man with Premier League experience with Sunderland. Newcastle play Tottenham Hotspur in a week’s time, and it was noticeable at the start of the game that they are only a week away from their first competitive game. Rafael Benitez’s men tried to put FCA under a lot pressure from the kick-off, but the Augsburg defence stayed strong for the first 45 minutes and Andreas Luthe kept any Newcastle shots out. He made three notable saves in the first half to prevent FCA from going behind. Michael Gregoritsch had the only FCA chance, hammering over the Newcastle crossbar. For Augsburg it was a lot better after the break. Gregoritsch had another chance in the 55th minute, narrowly missing the far post from 15 yards out. Augsburg’s number 11 did however open the scoring in the 61st minute. His header came from a perfect delivery from Philipp Max, carrying on from his record of 13 assists in the previous campaign. It was almost a repeat five minutes later, but Newcastle keeper Karl Darlow denied the Austrian with his feet. Substitute Kevin Danso inadvertently headed a dangerous ball into the box onto the crossbar in the 67th minute, but this was as close as Newcastle would come to scoring. FCA stayed compact in the closing stages and didn’t give the 21,000 home fans anything to cheer about. 20 FCA fans also made the journey to England, making themselves heard as often as possible. The Augsburg squad will fly back home after the game.