Preview

March 3, Kyiv, V. Lobanovskyi Dynamo stadium, 19:00

Match build-up

Shakhtar start in the Ukrainian Cup as the 13-time trophy winners. The previous time the Miners claimed this title back in 2019 after beating Inhulets in the final. In the past four seasons, the team have started their cup campaigns at the Round of 16 stage, while this year they are joining right in the quarter-finals. We want to mention that the upcoming match will be a milestone one - the 3000th competitive game in the history of the club.

Over the past 10 years, Shakhtar have faced 12 clubs from the lower leagues: Poltava (2010/11), Shakhtar Sverdlovsk (2011/12), Sevastopol (2012/13), Mykolayiv, Desna, Slavutych (2013/14), Obolon-Brovar, Poltava (2014/15), Arsenal-Kyiv, Ternopil (2015/16), Dnipro-1, Inhulets (2018/19).

On Monday, March 1st, Shakhtar held a training session in Sviatoshyno. After a short fitness session, the team worked on the field. The forwards Dentinho and Bohdan Viunnyk still train individually. The Miners have also got a morning training session scheduled for Tuesday.

Opponents

Ahrobiznes are the First League side. The club was founded in Volochysk of Khmelnytskyi Oblast back in 2016, which is reflected on the team crest. In the 2017/18 season, they played in the Second League and immediately advanced to the first tier. The following year, Ahrobiznes ended up in the 13th spot in the First League and retained their position in the knockout stage against Metalurh Zaporizhia. They finished the 2019/20 season in the fourth position after getting level with Inhulets and being a point adrift of Rukh and two points of the title winners Minaj.

The team’s head coach is Oleksandr Chyzhevskyi, a formerly renowned footballer who spent most of his player career at Karpaty Lviv. His name was given to a symbolic club that features the players who have made 300 + appearances in the Ukrainian top flight. We want to mention that in the late 1990s, Chyzhevskyi also played for Shakhtar.

This season, Ahrobiznes are topping the First League table: the Volochysk side are ahead of Veres and Chornomorets after having had a match more than them. Midfielder Ruslan Chernenko leads the competition’s top scorers list with eight goals. At the same time, Ahrobiznes have completed their preparation for the season’s second part only yesterday. After being back from their vacation on January 17 and training at home for a couple of weeks, the team flew to Turkey on February 1st - the training camp lasted the whole month and included a number of test games.

The encounter with Shakhtar is a historic event for Ahrobiznes, Oleksandr Chyzhevskyi has stressed this fact in his interview. He is happy with the winter preparation of the team, highlighting the opponents’ strengths and tasking his men with producing a decent performance against the domestic champions.

We also want to add that the Ukrainian Cup path started for Ahrobiznes in the second preliminary stage with a narrow victory over Uzhhorod, with Mykola Kohut scoring a goal. In the Round of 32, Chyzhevskyi's men beat Epitsentr Dunayevtsi 2-1 (Serhii Semenyuk, Mykola Kohut), and in the Round of 16 they defeated Vorskla 1-0 (Ruslan Chernenko).