Preview

6 March, Kyiv, V. Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium, 17:00

Before the match

This derby between the teams from Donetsk is one of the upcoming round’s highlights. Shakhtar are approaching it after suffering two narrow defeats – at the hands of Zorya in the league and of Ahrobiznes in the Cup competition. In the table, the Miners sit in the second spot, four points adrift of Dynamo. To improve their situation and regain the leading position, the champions have 10 games in which they have to claim maximum points, including the matches against the archrivals in five rounds.

In the meantime, the Orange-and-Blacks are facing Olimpik. The midfielder Alan Patrick who has earned his fourth yellow card in the meeting vs Zorya, will definitely miss it. Also, the recovering Taras Stepanenko will not take part in the game. Meanwhile, Ismaily returned in the last round - the Brazilian played for 90 minutes in his role. In the cup match, Dentinho came on as a substitute after he had been out for some time. Heorhii Sudakov, a graduate of the Shakhtar Academy, has finally got the opportunity to play.

Opponents

Olimpik have been experiencing a series of failures: in the spring the team suffered three defeats in a row (to Dynamo, Dnipro-1 and Minaj). The opponents had the last match under the guidance of their new head coach Yurii Kalytvyntsev. In the table, the Olympians are sitting in the eighth spot, while Oleksandriia and Kolos have got five points clear and each have a game in hand. Olimpik missed the MD10 meeting against Zorya.

A week ago, their encounter with Minaj was overshadowed by Yevhen Tsymbaliuk's severe injury: the Olimpik midfielder got a fracture and a ligament tear - he has undergone surgery. At the same time, Issiar Drame earned his fourth yellow card after appearing in nine matches in a row without being replaced. Serhii Politylo, on the contrary, served his suspension.

Interestingly, on Wednesday Yurii Kalytvyntsev offered the players to have two training sessions. According to the club's official website, in the morning they had some ballwork, running and playing exercises, and in the evening they had a theory session and worked on tactics. The opponents psych themselves up for the meeting with the super-motivated Shakhtar, they carefully analyse the opponents’ play and work out their plan in order to achieve a positive result.

Head-to-head record

In the league, the teams had 15 encounters: 11 were won by Shakhtar, four ended in a draw. The Orange-and-Blacks have scored 46 goals and conceded 11.

Previous meeting

Back in the first stage, Shakhtar won 2-0. Dangerous chances occurred early in the game: Kychak parried away the attempts by Dodo and Patrick, Tsymbaliuk cleared Marlos’s attempt off the goal line. At the end of the first half, Patrick wasted a penalty kick, so the teams left for the break with 0-0 on the scoreboard. The result was secured in the 64th and 66th minutes when Kovalenko finished off Korniienko’s cross and Moraes sent home Maycon’s delivery.