Preview

July 28, Odesa, Chornomorets, 21:00
Live broadcast on Ukrayina and Futbol 1 TV channels 

Before the match

Traditionally, the football season opens with a super cup duel, in which the champions meet with the Cup winners. Since Shakhtar have won both trophies, they are to play the UPL silver medalists Dynamo Kyiv. The Orange-and-Blacks will compete for the Ukrainian Super Cup for the 15th time, being the top domestic side for the number of victories in this competition (8).

For the season 2019/20 season, the Miners were prepared by the new coaching staff headed by Luis Castro, for whom this Clasico vs Dynamo will be the first in their careers. Shakhtar legend Darijo Srna makes his debut as as assistant manager - as a player, he participated 12 times in the Super Cup matches, including 9 occasions as a captain. Also, the team will play for the first time with logos of the new title partner TM Parimatch on their shirts.

During the summer break, Shakhtar held training camps in Germany and Austria. The training programme included test games against the Bulgarian Ludogorets (3-0) and CSKA (1-0), the German Uerdingen (1-1), the Danish Copenhagen (2-1), the Serbian Proleter (3-0), the Austrian Wolfsberger (2-0), and the Cypriot APOEL (0-1). Upon returning to Ukraine, they had friendlies vs Kolos (2-0) and Olimpik (3-0).

Opponents

Dynamo are the first winners of the Ukrainian Super Cup. In 2004, the Kyivans won a long penalty shootout of 20 attempts. All in all, the White-Blues have 7 titles, including the most recent one which they secured a year ago in Odesa.

This summer, the men of Oleksandr Khatskevych held test games vs Polissia (1- 2), Botosani (1-1), Wacker (3-0), Olympiacos (1-1), Zirl (5-0), Brentford (0-0), Obolon Brovar (1-1) and Kolos (1-3). Viktor Tsyhankov did not take part in any of those games. However, at yesterday’s open training session, the midfielder trained in the general group. Fran Sol still trains individually - the injury will not allow the Spaniard to play vs Shakhtar this Sunday.

We also want to mention that Dynamo have two newcomers: the former captain of Zorya Luhansk Oleksandr Karavayev and midfielder Mohammed Kadiri from Austria, who played on loan for Tula-based Arsenal last season.

Super Cup head-to-head record

Shakhtar won the trophy in 5 of 11 meetings with Dynamo: the Miners won 2-0 in regular time on three occasions, and in 2005 and 2008 they succeeded in penalty shootouts. In general, the opponents had to determine the winners through penalty shootouts in 5 games, but only once in the recent 5 years. By the way, during that period, the teams did not score more than two goals per game in the Super Cup aggregately.