On Thursday night, Rapid Vienna host Anorthosis FC at the Allianz Stadion in Europa League third qualifying round first leg.
Rapid Vienna’s early season form will be a concern to those connected to the club. They have picked up just a point from their opening two Bundesliga matches. Didi Kuhbauer’s team have also suffered defeat in the Champions League second qualifying round, losing 4-3 on aggregate against Sparta Prague.
Und gleich geht es los! #ASKSCR #skrapid #SCR2021 pic.twitter.com/gW46XZCJYN— SK Rapid (@skrapid) July 31, 2021
Und gleich geht es los! #ASKSCR #skrapid #SCR2021 pic.twitter.com/gW46XZCJYN
They won the first leg 2-1, only to suffer a 2-0 defeat in Prague, which set up this tie.
Rapid have appeared fairly regularly in the Europa League in recent seasons. Last season they featured in the group stages, where they won two of their six games in a group also containing Arsenal, Molde and Dundalk.
Their games in the group stages were certainly not lacking in entertainment value, as their last four matches produced over 2.5 goals. The fact that Rapid scored at least two goals in three of the four matches was a big factor in those high-scoring games.
Anorthosis have enjoyed a promising pre-season campaign. The Cypriot team will have needed to have built up some confidence in those games in preparation for this fixture, as they are big underdogs having lost three of their last four games in the Europa League.
In fact, going back slightly further the visitors have lost four of their last six matches in the early stages of the competition.
Like their opponents, the visitors recent Europa League matches have been relatively high-scoring, with over 2.5 goals scored in five of their last six games. However, that may mean nothing, as some of those six games were back in 2013.
Forebet predicts that Rapid Vienna will record a victory in a high-scoring game to virtually render the second leg a formality.