Vitesse vs Rapid Wien

Vitesse welcome visitors from Austria for this UEFA Conference League playoffs second leg at GelreDome in Arnhem early Friday morning Beijing time. The stakes are high as neither team have a realistic chance to qualify for The Champions League, let alone succeed. There. Vitesse do not normally play as offensive football as many other clubs in The Netherlands. However, here they will have to be active as they are trailing 1-2 on aggregate. They have, typically for Dutch teams, enthusiastic fans and the home advantage here is substantial. The first leg final score does not reflect the events on the pitch. Vitesse has 64% ball possession and created 17 chances - Rapid Wien had only 11. The shots on target statistic was 5-2 in Vitesse’s favor. They also recorded more passes, attacks and dangerous attacks.

Rapid Wien are having a very bad season and are in the 7th place in the standings. Finishing in the position would mean that they would end the season in The Relegation Group! This would be a big humiliation for this big club - by Austrian standards. They have won just one of their latest matches in all competition – the lucky win against Vitessse. They have not convinced me in defensively are offensively and lack a good structure in their game. The level of The Austrian Bundesliga is not very high by European standards. The only really good team are Red Bull Salzburg who top the standings with 51 points in the bank. Rapid Wien have just 25 points.

Vitesse on the other hand are playing a quite good season. They are currently in the 6yh place in the Duth Eredivisie. This league is much more competitive than The Austrian Bundesluga. Vitesse have not achieved good results lately either but played well in their most recent match away from home versus a good team Utrecht. They were slightly the better team, and a win would not have been undeserved at all. They had clearly more ball possession and created more scoring chances and shots target. We must also remember they have faced top teams Ajax and PSV lately.

Vitesse -0.5 goals handicap is a solid choice here with about 58% chance of winning.