Austria Vienna's path to the UEFA Conference League next round ran smoother than the pre-match math suggested on Thursday night, as they swept aside FK Liepaja 3-1 to complete a commanding aggregate victory. The Latvian side came out swinging—Haidara broke the deadlock in the fourth minute—but Austria Wien's advantage crumbled almost immediately when Martins was sent off eight minutes later. From that point on, it was a one-sided affair. Feddersen levelled it with a Maybach assist at 19 minutes, Boateng added a second at 29, and Ranftl sealed it in the 66th with Fischer picking out the cross. A 3-1 scoreline gave Austria Vienna complete control of the tie and a comfortable passage through.

Our model favoured a 2-0 outcome at 64% probability for an Austria Vienna win, and while we called the result direction correctly, the actual scoreline bypassed our prediction. The setup pointed toward a tight, defensive affair—Austria Vienna needing only to avoid a heavy defeat, FK Liepaja facing an impossible task with no margin for error and an away record that offered little hope. Those structural factors held up in the first half, but the sending-off shifted everything. Once Martins went off, Liepaja's slim hopes evaporated and Austria Vienna's attack found space it hadn't needed to force. We'd leaned toward a clean sheet and a low-scoring pattern; instead, both sides found the net, and the Austrians were ruthless enough to punish the numerical advantage when it came.