Preview

5 December, Kyiv, NSC Olimpiyskiy, 17:00

Before the match

Shakhtar is the only unbeaten club in the Championship. In 11 rounds, Luis Castro's men won six times and drew on five occasions. Last month, the Miners had three games: vs Dynamo (3-0), vs Oleksandriia (1-1) and vs Dnipro-1 (1-0). Tete brought important three points in Dnipro by netting his 88-minute goal after firing Marquinhos Cipriano’s cross home. There are only two UPL games remaining before the winter break.

Yesterday, Shakhtar head coach told in his interview to ShakhtarNews how the team were coping with the tight calendar and revealed their expectationsof the game vs Minaj. There are still several injured players: Moraes has joined Ismaily, Malyshev, Konoplyanka and Korniienko on the injured list. Kryvtsov, Khocholava and Dentinho are also out of play yet. Meanwhile, Viunnyk has recovered from his injury.

Squad list for the game

The list includes 20 players:

Goalkeepers: Andriy Pyatov, Anatolii Trubin

Defenders: Dodo, Serhii Bolbat, Vitao, Valerii Bondar, Mykola Matviienko,Marquinhos Cipriano

Midfielders: Taras Stepanenko, Maycon, Alan Patrick, Marcos Antonio, Heorhii Sudakov, Marlos, Viktor Kovalenko, Taison, Manor Solomon, Tete

Forwards: Fernando, Bohdan Viunnyk

Opponents

Minajare the top-flight newcomers. The club was founded in 2015 and represents thevillage of the same name. Over a very short period of time, the team progressedfrom the Championship of the city of Uzhhorod to the Premier League. Vasyl Kobin, a former Shakhtar player, has been coaching the team since 2019.

It so happened that due to the coronavirus issues in the ranks of Lviv, the Minaj side missed the 1st league round, debuting with a 1-0 victory over Oleksandriia. TheTranscarpathians’first UPL goal was scored by Anton Shynderwho also used to be a Shakhtar player a few years ago. There are also Anton Kanibolotskyi, Denys Kozhanov, Oleksandr Hlahola, as well as Kyrylo Melichenko and Dmytro Pavlish on loan from Shakhtar.