Preview

November 8, Kyiv, NSC Olimpiyskiy, 17:00

Before the match

After 8 rounds, Shakhtar are 4 points adrift of Dynamo, and the best opportunity to shorten this distance is to win a head-to-head meeting with the direct competitors. In the new season, Luis Castro's players won 4 matches and drew on the same number of occasions (vs Zorya, Rukh, Desna and Vorskla). Mircea Lucescu's team has also lost points in ties, just two times instead of four (vs Desna and Zorya), with all the other UPL participants suffering at least one defeat each.

Both clubs played their Champions League games midweek: Shakhtar lost to Monchengladbach atOlimpiyskiy on Tuesday, with Dynamo suffering a defeat at the hands of Barcelona at Camp Nou. An extra day may be of little importanceprimarily for physical recovery, while Luis Castro and his men have already solved the mental recovery issue - they analysed the previous game and left it in the past, now it was important to focus on the most urgent objectives.

Please be reminded that Shakhtar beat Mariupol in the 8th round. In that game, the coaching staff made major rotation, fielding 11 other players. Against Borussia Monchengladbach, the Miners’ starting line-up was just the same as in the games vs Inter Milan and Real Madrid, with Taison starting as number nine instead of Dentinho.Continuing the attacking theme, we want to note that Moraes has already played for 45 minutes in the Champions League, Dentinho is on the way to his recovery, and Viunnykplayed in the U21 Clasico (and scored his 13th goal in 6 games)yesterday.

Opponents

Early this season, Dynamo won the first trophy with Mircea Lucescu at the helm - the Ukrainian Super Cup. However, they did it in both 2018 and 2019, still finishing second in the league’s long run. Now, the White-Blues are topping the UPL table: this is a certain bonus for them mental point of view,however, Shakhtar are able to reduce the opponents’ advantage to a minimum.

Just as previously happened in Shakhtar’s case, one of the main media topics is the coronavirus at Dynamo. However, the Kyivites, just like the Miners, have proved that a wide personnel selection enables them to field a fighting squad without any U21 or U19 footballers. The only exception is the goalkeeperrole, with the 18-year-old Ruslan Nesheret having made his recent debut. The team played the game in Barcelona with the following squad: Nescheret, Kendzyora, Zabarnyi, Popov, Shabanov, Shepelev, Buyalskyi (Lednyov86’), Andriievskyi, Tsyhankov, Rodriguez (De Pena 71’), Supryaha (Verbic 71’).

In the Premier League, Mircea Lucescu's men have won in 3 previous rounds vs Rukh (2-0),Oleksandriia (1-0) and Dnipro-1 (2-1). Interestingly, in the current league Dynamohave played only once outside Kyiv - against Rukh in Lviv. Minaj and Dnipro-1 had their home games at the NSC Olimpiyskiy.

Head-to-head record

In the summer, Shakhtar leveled off the Ukrainian League head-to-head statistics vs Dynamo: 65 games, 24 wins and 17 draws. The Donetsk team scored 79 goals, the Kyiv team netted 81.

Previous league meeting