Olimpik vs Shakhtar: preview

On Saturday, the Ukrainian League season will continue after the break related to the international duty. While Shakhtar had a large number of players capped, Olimpik were purposefully preparing for the meeting between the two Donetsk sides. On 8 October, they had a friendly with Dynamo (3-3, a hat-trick by Volodymyr Lysenko).

The Pitmen are six points ahead of the Kyiv side, being the sole leaders of the championship. On the same day, their closest pursuers will play Chornomorets away.

At the moment, the Orange-and-Blacks boast the best goal difference among all participants of the tournament: the highest number of goals (23) and the smallest number of mistakes (5).

Referee – Yuriy Vaks (Khmelnytskyi)
Assistant referees – Ihor Alyokhin (Khmelnytskyi), Semen Shlonchak (Cherkasy)
Fourth official – Oleksandr Holovkov (Luhansk Oblast)
Referee Observer – Andriy Shandor (Lviv)

Olimpik have been doing pretty well in the current season. They are one of the most uncompromising teams (with just one draw in the league), closing the upper part of the table being four points adrift of Vorskla (6th place).

From the 6th to the 8th round, Olimpik produced winning streaks against Karpaty, Dnipro and Stal. The success of the Donetsk side was interrupted by a major defeat at the hands of Dynamo, with the team of Roman Sanzhar claiming three points again by gaining the upper hand in the 10th round vs Vorskla.

The opponents’ top scorer is midfielder Andrii Bohdanov. He boasts four goals, three of which he scored vs Dnipro (the first hat-trick in his career). Only Júnior Moraes scored more goals in the current league edition.

Both teams had four league games. All wins with aggregate goal difference of 17-2 belong to Shakhtar. On Olimpik’s field, they registered 5-0 and 3-2 wins for Shakhtar.

On April 17, 2016, the teams had a meeting in the 22nd round of the past league season. The first half was goalless, with Shakhtar netting an early goal in the second one: Nem got himself on the scoresheet through a spectacular volley into the far corner. On 83 minutes, the substitution player Marlos converted a spot kick, with Eduardo sealing a 3-0 win in the closing stages.

Andriy Pyatov can make it past Andrii Vorobei (319) and become the 11th top player in the history of Shakhtar in terms of the number of appearances.

The Pitmen’s goal-scoring run kicked off on August 28, 2015, having lasted for 30 games now (89 goals).

Marlos may well make his 100th appearance for Shakhtar.