Turns Out Red Bull Doesn’t Give You Wings

By: Daryl | March 26th, 2008

Red Bulls Salzburg fans Fans of SV Austria Salzburg faced a tough choice back in 2005, when Red Bull bought their team. The new owners erased the team’s name, history, violet-white colours and pretty much everything else non-energy drink related, resulting in Red Bull Salzburg.

Two factions emerged: The “Violet-Whites” set up a new team named SV Austria Salzburg to preserve the team’s history and traditions – including the old violet and white kit and old logo – and started again in 2. Klasse Nord, the seventh tier of Austrian football. The “Red-White-Violets” decided Red Bull Salzburg was a continuation of SV, and threw their lot in the with the new guys. The new guys with all the money.

But after what happened this weekend, Red Bull might want to think about rebranding the team and wiping that history clean all over again.

Red Bull Salzburg hosted Rapid Vienna in a huge top of the table Austrian Bundesliga clash. Red Bull went into the game two points ahead of second placed Rapid and firm favourites for the title. After all, they have all the money in the world and one of the world’s top managers in Giovanni Trapattoni. But 90 incredible minutes later Red Bull had somehow lost 7-0 to Rapid, and surrendered first place in the Bundesliga.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I7w3mX35P8

And I don’t think I’ve seen seven easier goals.

Trapattoni himself (if you’re not familiar, he’s the white haired gent looking increasingly disappointed in the video) described the result as only he knows how: “It was not a defeat,” he said. It was a catastrophe.”

Despite the sheer size of this result, Rapid are only one point clear of Red Bull with five games to go. So the Austrian Bundesliga finale should be fascinating. Maybe the 7-0 defeat will give Red Bull a massive kick in the arse, or maybe it will make Rapid unbeatable. Maybe both.

But if I was an old SV Austria Salzburg fan who went with Red Bull back in 2005… given the embarrassment of such a gargantuan defeat I’d be seriously considering going back to violet and white next season.