Rapid Vienna vs Sturm Graz Prediction: Home team will not lose

Rapid Vienna and Sturm Graz meet at Allianz Stadion in a pivotal Austrian Bundesliga battle. The weekend before last, the host team played to a tie against LASK Linz, while the visiting Sturm Graz team lost to Salzburg.

The preceding games that Rapid Vienna played resulted in 0 wins, 3 losses to Sturm Graz, Salzburg, and Austria Wien, and 2 draws with Salzburg and LASK Linz. Rapid Vienna were able to score four goals but allowed nine to be scored against them in those matches. During the course of the current league season, Rapid Vienna has scored 1.55 goals on average per game. In terms of disciplinary actions, the home team has been given 51 yellow cards and 3 red cards, for a total of 13.73 fouls committed on average over all of their matches. The team rating that Rapid Vienna earns on average is 6.75 points per game. This season, Rapid Vienna has maintained an average possession of the ball of 53.68%, which indicates that they are good at maintaining the ball.

Sturm Graz comes into this match having won four of their most recent five matches against Austria Wien, Rapid Vienna, Austria Wien, and Austria Klagenfurt and losing one of those matches against Salzburg. The club was responsible for twelve goals while also allowing five goals to be scored against them in those matches. Away from home, Sturm Graz scored 1.68 goals on average per contest while allowing 0.68 goals to be scored against them. The overall number of fouls committed by the squad is 302, with 33 players receiving yellow cards and one player receiving a red card. The overall match rating for Sturm Graz's team is 6.85 on average. The overall percentage of time that Sturm Graz has had control of the ball this season is only 49.18% on average.

Both Rapid Vienna and Sturm Graz have competed against one another 74 times over the course of the previous seasons, with Rapid Vienna claiming victory in 27 of those games and Sturm Graz claiming victory in 25 of those contests. There were a total of 22 games that ended in draws. In the head-to-head matchups between the two teams, Rapid Vienna scored 109 goals, while Sturm Graz only managed to score 98.

For both teams, winning this game is absolutely essential. But Rapid Vienna appears to be the team that needs this victory the most, as Sturm Graz's chances of winning the league appear to be over after their defeat to Salzburg last weekend. Therefore, in a game where more than two goals are not predicted to be scored, I will support the home team to at least secure a draw.