U21. Karpaty v Shakhtar: match preview

After three rounds the Pitmen are leading the U21 championship standings. Valeriy Kriventsov's squad won all their games with an overall goal difference 13-1. In the previous match in Shchaslyve, they thrashed Oleksandriya (5-0) with Arabidze scoring a double, and Adamenko, Tankovskyi and Boiarchuk having a goal each.

Karpaty earned 4 points in three games, and are 7th in the standings. In the previous round the Lviv team beat Vorskla 4-0 in an away game, thanks to goals by Poliuhanych, Savoshko, Salamakha and Gabriel.

There are no players missing the game due to penalty cards on either team.

Referee - Ihor Paskhal (Kherson)
Assistant referees - Leonid Yarmolynskyi, Yevhen Petrakov (both - Kyiv)
Fourth official - Stepan Lapko
Referee observer - Serhii Dziuba (Kyiv)

Six years ago, Karpaty became the winners of the youth championship, but since then they have never even got into the top three. The Lviv team finished the 2015/16 season seventh. The top scorer of the Galicians was midfielder Volodymyr Savoshko, who scored 11 goals. 

This summer a well-known former player of the Green-and-Whites Oleksandr Chizhevskyi headed the Karpaty U21 team. In the first match of the season the Lions had a draw in the game against Stal (1-1), were defeated in a home game by Dynamo (0-2), and beat Vorskla (4-0). The coaching staff used young students of the club, as well as players with experience in the Premier League.

Shakhtar and Karpaty have had 20 matches in the reserve and U21 championships. The Pitmen won nine times, the Lviv team won seven times, and four games ended in a draw, with the goal difference being 43-29 for the Orange-and-Blacks. Last season the rivals exchanged home wins. In Shchaslyve Andrii Boiarchuk's brace brought three points for the Donetsk team (2-0), while Karpaty were stronger in Lviv - 3-1 (Kravets, Savoshko (2), Pikhalynok).

Shakhtar U21 midfielders Giorgi Arabidze and Mykyta Adamenko scored in all three games this season. They are the leading scorers of the championship.

The Pitmen's goalkeeper Oleh Kudryk and defender Taras Kacharaba are natives of the Lviv Oblast, where they started their football careers.

The head coach of Karpaty U21 Oleksandr Chizhevskyi appeared in nine game for Shakhtar in 1999.