Perennial dark horses Turkiye meet genuine dark horses Austria in an enthralling Euro 2024 last-16 tie on Tuesday.
Austria beat the Netherlands 3-2 to seal top spot in Group D ahead of the Oranje and tournament favourites France.
Turkiye, meanwhile, bounced back from a 3-0 defeat to Portugal by beating Czechia 2-1 and sealing their progress from Group F as runners-up.
These teams have landed in the kinder half of the draw, with a quarter-final against Romania or the Netherlands up for grabs.
Here, we preview the clash in Leipzig using Opta data.
What's expected?
Let's dig straight into the Opta supercomputer's prediction. The model is forecasting an Austria win, giving Ralf Rangnick's team a 48.2% chance of victory.
Turkiye have a 24.9% chance, while there's a 26.8% chance of a draw, which would of course mean extra time or even penalties.
This will be the first meeting in a major tournament between Austria and Turkiye.
Austria have won two of the last three encounters in all competitions (L1), including an emphatic 6-1 victory in March of this year.
In competitive matches, however, Turkiye are unbeaten in their last five games against Austria (W4 D1), keeping a clean sheet each time; this is the first such meeting since a goalless draw in a Euro 2012 qualifier in September 2011.
You can certainly expect a full-throttle encounter, though.
Rangnick's side are a brilliant pressing unit. Only Germany (8.8) had a lower PPDA in the group stages than Austria (9.0), while they were second for tackles (61) behind Georgia (63) and top for fouls conceded (49).
Turkiye love to get on the front foot, too. Indeed, only Portugal (5.8) and Spain (5.4) had a higher non-penalty expected goals total than Turkiye (5.2) in the groups, while Vincenzo Montella's side were also third for high turnovers (28), behind Croatia (34) and Portugal (30).
Ralf's still got it
Rangnick's interim stint in charge of Manchester United did not go well, and some eyebrows were raised when Bayern Munich approached him earlier this summer.
Yet on the evidence of Euro 2024, Rangnick has still very much got it.
His team have been fantastic, and were worthy winners of Group D, scoring six goals across their last two fixtures in the first round, and only going down to France due to an unfortunate own goal from Maximilian Wober.
Since Rangnick's first game in charge in June 2022, only three European nations – Portugal (73%), Spain (67%) and Netherlands (64%) – have a higher win percentage than Austria (60%), who have won 15 of their 25 matches under him.
Austria have qualified for the knockout stages of a major tournament for only a fourth time, also doing so at the 1934 and 1954 World Cups and Euro 2020, losing 2-1 to Italy in the round of 16 in the latter.
So it is hardly like the pressure is on, but given their displays so far, there is a feeling they can really go deep in this tournament.
The kids are alright
Turkiye were well fancied at Euro 2020, but ultimately flopped as they crashed out in the first round.
This is just the third time they have reached the Euros knockouts, after 2000 and 2008, reaching the semi-finals at the latter tournament, which, of course, was co-hosted by Austria. However, they have yet to win a knockout tie in 120 minutes in the competition. They progressed past Croatia in the quarters on penalties 16 years ago, before losing 3-2 to Germany in the last four.
But this new generation holds no fear.
Only Ukraine (25 years, 281 days) had a younger average age of their starting XI in the group stages than Turkiye (26y 170d).
In fact, should Kenan Yildiz (19y 59d on the day of the game) and Arda Guler (19y 128d on the day of the game) start, it will be just the second time a nation has started two teenagers in a knockout stage game at the Euros, after Hungary against Denmark in 1964 (Ferenc Bene and Zoltan Varga).
Guler may well be crucial, especially when considering that playmaker Hakan Calhanoglu will miss this match through suspension.
Real Madrid youngster Guler is already his country's bright new hope, but he could make himself a hero here.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Austria - Christoph Baumgartner
Baumgartner has been directly involved in nine goals in his last eight appearances for Austria (six goals, three assists).
He scored and assisted in the group stage, becoming the first Austrian player to do so in a single European Championship tournament, and first at a major tournament since Gerhard Rodax at the 1990 World Cup.
Baumgartner will be back playing on home turf in this match, too. He plies his trade for RB Leipzig.
Turkiye - Ferdi Kadioglu
Full-back Kadioglu created more chances from open play than any other player in the group stages (10), while only Mykola Matviienko (25) and Jeremy Doku (23) recorded more progressive carries of 10 metres or more (22).
He is certainly a player Austria need to keep a close eye on.
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
Taylor pleased with City's physical test during Hammarby win
Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor was pleased with how his team stood up to the physical challenge of Hammarby in their 2-0 Champions League victory on Tuesday.
City's win extended their unbeaten start to the season, having won every game in all competitions following a 2-2 draw against Arsenal on opening day.
“Difficult game for us, physical challenge, a physical team in Hammarby. I think they outnumber us a little bit in terms of size, considering when you look at our midfield. But I thought the girls handled it really well," Taylor said after the game
“I thought we dominated the game. In the early parts we were just a little bit off in our final action. We just needed to speed up a little bit in terms of being on the end of it, and we spoke about that at half-time, and we score with Laura getting into that type of position we’d been talking about.
“[The physicality was something] we were prepared for, but dealing with it is a different thing. Having Bunny [Khadija Shaw] and Alanna [Kennedy] on the pitch, two of our more physical players, is really important, particularly for set-plays.
“At 1-0 we were defending a couple of scenarios like that, Yama [Ayaka Yamashita] making a really good save at one point. Then Aoba [Fujino] got the goal that maybe allowed us to change things up a little bit more, get some people off that we’d like to manage.
“I think the girls have dealt with it really well tonight. We expected it, we thought it would be difficult, and they rose to the challenge.”
The victory leaves City top of their Champions League group with a 100% record after three matches, three points above second-placed Barcelona.
Taylor had made changes to City's starting XI, with Lauren Hemp among the trio to drop out from the weekend and she did not feature in the squad. Ahead of their weekend game against Chelsea, who are second in the WSL, Taylor explained the reasoning behind Hemp's absence.
“We’ve just got an issue with Lauren that we just need to analyse a little bit further, that’s all," he said.
“It’s something that potentially happened in the Palace game [on 3 November]. She was able to play in the Tottenham game [last Friday] but wasn’t able to tonight, so we’ll just take a little bit longer to assess and find out more.
“Hopefully [she can play against Chelsea]. There’s an opportunity there, we’ll just have to take a moment tomorrow, have a good conversation and find out where we’re at with the medical staff.”
Al-Riyadh 0-1 Al-Nassr: Mane hands visitors bragging rights
Sadio Mane's first-half strike ensured Al-Nassr maintained their unbeaten start to the Saudi Pro League season with a 1-0 win over rivals Al-Riyadh.
He smartly finished from close range in the 41st minute, with his goal enough to seal the three points and move Al-Nassr up to third in the table.
Al-Nassr's threat grew as the first half went on, with Milan Borjan making a fine double stop to deny Ronaldo and Talisca once again before Mohamed Simakan struck the post on the rebound.
Mane would eventually break the deadlock in the 41st minute though, darting in front of his marker to meet Abdulrahman Ghareeb's low cross and rifle it into the roof of the net.
The Senegalese striker arguably should have doubled his tally before the break, but was denied by Borjan's stretching save when one-on-one with the Canadian.
Talisca should have wrapped up the points in the final three minutes, but he blazed over an empty net from close range, before having a late goal disallowed for offside.
Data Debrief: Derby delight for Al-Nassr
After drawing their last two matches, this win was a welcome result for Al-Nassr as they racked up their sixth victory of the season to close the gap at the top of the table to six points.
It is just the second time Al-Nassr have avoided defeat in their first 10 matches of a Pro League campaign, last doing so in 2013-14, when they won the league title.
They are now unbeaten in their last seven Pro League derbies (W4 D3), their longest such streak since a run of nine between 2018 and 2020.
This is the first time in eight such games that they have kept a clean sheet though, and limited their opponents to just five shots throughout.
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