Golden consistency

The 2011/12 Championship was one of the most interesting ones in the history of Ukrainian football. According to its results, Shakhtar won gold medals for the seventh time, securing their third title in a row.

Minimal tweaks

In the summer of 2011, the Miners said goodbye to Jadson, one of their leaders. The Brazilian played for the club for nearly 7 years, but for family reasons he was forced to return to the homeland and continue his career there. He was fully replaced by the progressing and young Willian, Douglas Costa and Alex Teixeira. We also want to mention the signing-up of the promisingly young Dentinho and Alan Patrick, with the domestic transfers of striker Yevhen Seleznyov and goalkeeper Oleksandr Rybka giving an instant effect.

Tight fight

Despite the growing opposition from Metalist and Dnipro, in the 2011/12 season the title race unfolded between Shakhtar and Dynamo. The opponents went neck and neck almost throughout the championship, never being more than 3 points apart. The Miners were topping the league table from the 1st to the 14th round, and the Kyiv outfit were doing so from the 15th to the 26th round. Even the head-to-head encounter in the first stage ended in a 0-0 tie.
 
The spring part turned out to be particularly fierce. In the first game in March, the Donetsk team stumbled in the 1-1 draw vs Dnipro and let their competitors get 3 points clear. As it turned out, it was the last misfire for Mircea Lucescu's team in that premiership.

Finish spurt

From the 22nd round, Shakhtar began the winning streak that lasted until the very finish. The main event of the season was, of course, the Ukrainian Clasico. In the 26th round, Mircea Lucescu's team hosted Dynamo in Donetsk.

53,207 spectators at the Donbass Arena saw one of the most vivid and emotionally tense encounters between the giants, with everything being decided in the second half - in the 56th minute, Alex Teixeira opened the scoring, with Yaroslav Rakitskyy sealing the win in the 81st minute. 2-0 - the Miners caught up with the Kyiv side on points and advanced to the top spot thanks to other performance figures.

The rivals synchronously won their next games, with the trophy’s future being decided in the final rounds. In the 29th round, Dynamo tied with Zorya, while Shakhtar claimed a hard-fought 2-1 victory in Kharkiv over Metalist.

The Miners won the league title in the last match, thrashing Oleksandriia 3-0 at home. Having scored 79 points (4 more than the Kyivans), the Donetsk team won the seventh title in the club’s history and the third in a row. Shakhtar got their fans accustomed to gold medals.

Heroes of the season

The 2011/12 was a real success for Shakhtar midfielder Willian. The Brazilian was the undisputed leader of the team, providing 16 (!) incredible assists in 27 league games. Having added 5 goals on top, he was recognized as the best goal+assist player.

In general, the Miners delivered the most fruitful performance that season, scoring as many as 80 goals vs their rivals (improving this record the following year!). We want to mention that Shakhtar striker Yevhen Seleznyov was the UPL top scorer with 14 goals in 23 games, with his attacking partner Luiz Adriano netting 12 goals. Another 10 goals were scored by the team regular Henrikh Mkhitaryan, we also want to highlight Fernandinho who provided 10 assists.

The defenders also worked to high standards, with the most appearances belonging to the captain Darijo Srna (25), Yaroslav Rakitskyy (27), Oleksandr Kucher (21) and Viacheslav Shevchuk (18). Only the goalkeeping role underwent rotation: during the first part of the season, the main keeper was Oleksandr Rybka (19 apps, 11 mistakes), with Andriy Pyatov (10/6) playing safely throughout the decisive segment.

The season’s undisputed hero is Mircea Lucescu. In the winter of 2012, the Romanian coach survived a severe car accident, but quickly returned to duty and led the team to another golden double. For that achievement, he was once again recognized as Coach of the Season.

Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar manager in the 2011/12 season:

“I can point out that winning the league title gets increasingly difficult. Our opponents are also growing continuously, and next year they will try to approach us and the pace we set. It was a difficult season. We were below Dynamo nearly all the time. It was really tough. And it’s hard to recover the points that we lost. But we won the league title because we were sure we’re the best, demonstrating that in every game. Thanks to the rotation, we allowed everyone to feel involved in the common cause and, most importantly, everyone was in good shape. Anyone could be fielded, with no one noticing the replacement. The strength of our team lies in the mood of all players without exception and the team created. Let’s hope that we will continue in the same vein and that we will claim more victories.”