Kühbauer offers first CL verdict: "Football on a different level"

LASK also received a lesson in their UEFA Champions League home debut against FC Liverpool.

After the narrow 0-1 defeat in their Champions League opener against AEK Athens, they suffered a 3-6 loss in front of a magnificent home crowd.

At this level, "the air is simply thinner," said coach Dietmar Kühbauer after the match, adding: "The mistakes you might allow yourself in the domestic league, you simply cannot afford here, because their football IQ is far above our league's."

Against FC Liverpool, LASK also lacked defensive compactness. A mistake that is particularly punishing in the Champions League, as Kühbauer knows: "At this level, you have to defend better, you have to bring in physical presence, you simply have to do things far better than in the domestic league."

Kühbauer: "You have to be even quicker in your mind"

He simply saw "that Liverpool is above us. At this level, where Liverpool has been for a lifetime, we would like to get there. But of course, it was a beautiful game for us to see everything that is possible in football," the successful Linz coach told "CANAL+".

After the match, he also offered a first verdict on his team's performance in the first two Champions League matchdays: "You simply see: this is football at a different level. You have to be even quicker in your mind, you have to make better use of opportunities when you get them. This is a learning process. Hopefully, it will progress steadily."

There's no time for LASK to catch their breath: On Sunday, the Linz team will visit promoted side SC Austria Lustenau in Ländle, before it's once again about securing their first points in the UEFA Champions League next Wednesday against Sporting Lisbon.