Preview

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Sports Mole previews Thursday's Europa Conference League clash between Hapoel Be'er Sheva and Austria Vienna, including predictions, team news and possible lineups.

Hapoel Be'er Sheva will fight for a place in the Europa Conference League playoff round on Thursday, when they host Austria Vienna in the final round of games in Group C.

The home side trail second-placed Lech Poznan by two points, meaning they require a victory in their game and a slip from the Polish outfit, while their visitors are out of contention having only managed two points in five matches.

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Match preview

After progressing through three rounds of qualifying, Hapoel Be'er Sheva reached the Europa Conference League group stage and began with a goalless draw against Austria Vienna, before falling to a narrow 2-1 defeat at the hands of a Villarreal side heavily fancied to dominate the group.

Now five games in, the Camels are still yet to post a group victory but have also avoided defeat since that Villarreal contest, firstly playing out a goalless stalemate away at Lech Poznan before drawing 1-1 at home in their second meeting, with Filip Szymczak drawing their visitors level after Tomer Hemed had opened the scoring.

They then faced the tough test of a trip to Villarreal most recently and were able to leave with a commendable point, despite going 2-1 down heading into the final stages after Hemed opened the scoring, as Sagiv Yehezkel salvaged a 2-2 draw with a 79th-minute equaliser.

The Camels now head into their final match on the back of an important domestic victory, having closed the gap to second-placed Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the Israeli Premier League to two points with a 2-0 triumph at the weekend, and Elyaniv Barda's side will know that only a win will suffice if they are to stand a chance of remaining in the competition.

The lack of a win in their five outings sees Hapoel Be'er Sheva two points worse off than Lech Poznan, meaning they need a victory and likely for the Polish outfit to lose their contest against Villarreal, unless they are able to close a gap of three in goal difference and the other game in the group ends in a draw.

Austria Vienna, meanwhile, make the trip to Israel without any hope of progressing, having also failed to secure a single three-point haul in five attempts thus far.

Unlike their opponents, however, Die Veilchen have suffered three defeats, with all of those coming consecutively after the opening-day goalless draw with Hapoel Be'er Sheva.

A 4-1 beating away at Lech Poznan followed that result before they were thrashed 5-0 away at Villarreal, with Jose Luis Morales hitting a late hat-trick alongside goals from Alex Baena and Arnaut Danjuma.

Hoping to bounce back from those losses and stay in the fight, Manfred Schmid's side then hosted Villarreal in the return fixture and were only denied a share of the spoils by a late Nicolas Jackson winner, before taking on Lech Poznan in a game they needed to win to avoid falling out of reach of second spot.

While the Austrian outfit were able to stop their losing run, they did not manage to secure all three points, with the contest ending in a 1-1 draw thanks to Can Keles's 69th-minute equaliser.

Now sitting on just two points, and on the back of a dramatic late 2-1 win against Altach in the Austrian Bundesliga, Schmid's side will look to end their continental campaign on a high with an away triumph in Israel.

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