Preview

September 19, Kharkiv, OSK Metalist, 19:55
Live broadcast on the Futbol 2 channel

Before the match

Shakhtar are kicking off their 13th UEFA Champions League group stage campaign. Last year, Paulo Fonseca’s men delivered a successful performance in the quartet with Manchester City, Napoli and Feyenoord, making it through to the knockout stages. The Miners’ UCL winning streak in Kharkiv involved 4 games.
 
This new season, the draw has again brought the Ukrainian Champions together with the City, also facing Hoffenheim and Lyon for the first time. We want to mention that never before the Miners’ UCL home leg started so early - at 19:55 Kyiv time (EET).

Opponents
 
Last season, Hoffenheim became the bronze medalists of the Bundesliga for the first time in their history, making it directly to the UCL group stage. They are the Miners’ seventh European club cup challengers from Germany after Borussia Dortmund, Schalke 04, Stuttgart, Werder Bremen, Bayer 04 and Bayern Munich.
 
Julian Nagelsmann’s men started their current league campaign in Germany with an away defeat at the hands of Bayern (1-3). In the second round, the Blue-Whites defeated  Freiburg away with the same score, losing to Fortuna on September 15 in Dusseldorf (1-2). The forward Adam Szalai is one of the best scorers in the Bundesliga (3 goals). To date, Hoffenheim are the second team in the league in terms of the shots on target (45), with nearly half of them from outside the box.
 
Hoffenheim played their recent game before flying to Kharkiv with the following squad: Baumann, Nordtveit, Vogt, Posch (Nelson, 72), Kaderabek, Bittencourt (Zuber, 63), Grillitsch, Kramaric, Schulz, Joelinton (Belfodil, 57), Szalai.