Shakhtar has been looking good lately. After a narrow defeat on October 25th against Barcelona away, the “Miners” played two matches. They first secured a victory against “Viktoria” in the cup (3-0), and then a crucial win against their arch-rival, Kyiv’s “Dynamo” (1-0). The upcoming opponent is, of course, much stronger than their previous opponents, so even avoiding a loss would be a significant achievement. In the Champions League, under the guidance of Marino Pusic, Shakhtar lost to Barcelona (1-2) and Porto (1-3), but they managed to win against Antwerp (3-2). This places the Ukrainian team in the third position in the group. In the upcoming match, Efim Konoplya will be unavailable due to an accumulation of yellow cards.
Barcelona predictably tops Group N, winning three out of three possible matches. In these games, they scored eight times and conceded only once. In the current season, the Catalans recently suffered their first loss to Real Madrid, who secured a minimal victory of 2-1. After that, the “Blaugrana” played against Real Sociedad and won 1-0. On October 25th, in the third round of the group stage of the Champions League, Javier Hernandez’s team managed to win in Spain with a minimal score against the Ukrainian team. Everyone was expecting a convincing and possibly even a resounding victory. Nevertheless, in the upcoming match, the nominal guests are clear favorites. We’ll see if they can live up to that status. In the upcoming game, players such as De Jong and Roberto will be unavailable. Fortunately, the coaching staff has plenty of players who can replace the absentees.
