We said: Austria 2-0 Azerbaijan
Having kept clean sheets in each of their friendly victories during November, Austria should be confident of holding Azerbaijan at arm's length at home on Friday.
Although the visitors have won each of their last five matches, none of their opponents were at a level close to Austria's ability, suggesting that Rangnick's side should be able to kick-start their qualification campaign with a comfortable victory.
Read more.Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Austria win with a probability of 50.08%. A win for Azerbaijan had a probability of 24.96% and a draw had a probability of 24.9%.
The most likely scoreline for an Austria win was 1-0 with a probability of 11.27%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.5%) and 2-0 (9.02%). The likeliest Azerbaijan win was 0-1 (7.42%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.86%). The actual scoreline of 4-1 was predicted with a 2% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Austria would win this match.