Egnatia Rrogozhinë demolished Shamrock Rovers 5-1 in a second-leg Europa League knockout tie that bore almost no resemblance to our pre-match forecast. The Albanian side came out swinging from the opening minute, and Shamrock never recovered. Adjessa opened the scoring in the 4th minute off a Gruda assist, then Albanese made it two just seven minutes later from a Fernando Medeiros cross. By the 20th minute, Gruda had added a third, and after Adjessa grabbed his second from another Medeiros assist on 38 minutes, Egnatia had already put the tie to bed. Albanese completed his brace in the 58th minute — also from Medeiros — before Burke grabbed a late consolation for Shamrock in the 74th. An Egnatia red card for Ndreca in the final minute of the first half did nothing to slow their momentum.

Our model predicted a tighter 2-1 win to Egnatia and assigned that outcome a 58% probability, making it our most likely scenario but far from certain. What we flagged beforehand — Egnatia's high-scoring home form and maximum attacking pressure given their elimination stakes — did indeed show up, but the execution was ruthless and the margin enormous. Shamrock's mixed away form and deep-sitting defensive shape proved no match for Egnatia's intensity or clinical finishing, especially with Fernando Medeiros pulling strings in midfield. We got the result direction right but badly underestimated both the tempo and the gap in quality on the night. Sometimes a team simply clicks at the exact moment they need to, and this was one of those nights.