Preview

Shakhtar's opponents are Riga, the club from the capital of Latvia. Watch the live stream at 16:00 Kyiv time on Shakhtar TV on the official website, on the FC Shakhtar mobile app (Google Play and App Store), and on the club’s official channel on YouTube.

Riga won the domestic league title in 2018, 2019 and 2020. And last season, they finished fourth after RFS, Valmiera and Liepaja (outside the European competition zone). The Riga outfit won exactly a half of their 28 matches, being tied on 8 occasions, and suffering six defeats. They scored a total of 54 goals and conceded 26.

Perhaps the main star of Riga is their new coach Thorsten Fink. The decorated former Bayern footballer coached in several countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus, Japan) and signed a contract with the Latvians in January 2022. More recently, Shakhtar academy graduate Vladlen Yurchenko moved to Riga, there are two more Ukrainians in the team: Yurii Vakulko and Oleksandr Filippov.

For the Riga outfit, the Turkish training camp is the second one this winter break. The first camp was held in Dubai, it was long-lasting (from January 9 to February 17) and involved 8 test matches (we want to note the victories over Slovakia’s Slovan and Zilina, and a tie against Spartak Moscow). In Turkey, besides the meeting with Shakhtar, Fink's men are scheduled to play friendlies against Kairat, Polissya and Sandefjord.