Shakhtar Donetsk hosts Dynamo Kyiv in round 30 of Ukrainian Premier League. The match will be played on Wednesday, May 22nd at OSC Metalist (Kharkiv)
Exactly a week before the match against Dynamo, the Donetsk club won its next title - it beat the sensational Ingulets with a 4: 0 score. Surely, no one doubted that the Miners would be able to cope with the team of the second division (by the way, the team from the lower division got to the cup final for the first time). In the first minutes, Shakhtar didn’t manage to surprise the opponent with anything, while the team from the urban village Petrovo even tried to snap. Already by the halftime, the Moles scored three times, so in fact, the game for both teams was over. Shakhtar attacked by inertia, while a team from the Kirovograd region tried not to lose its face.
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Thus, this year Shakhtar Donetsk became the leader in the number of titles won in the history of independent Ukraine. The Donetsk club had no competition in the championship of Ukraine, where it constantly maintained a solid advantage in points over Dynamo Kyiv. There are still a few matches left before the end of the season, including the game against their most principled opponent, but they will not decide anything from the tournament point of view. Donetsk club is already beginning to prepare for the strengthening of the squad for the coming off-season. It is likely that winger Bruno Tabata, who plays in Portuguese Portimonense, will be signed.
In this season, Dynamo failed to reach a new level. It seems that the Whites and Blues regress further and the bet on its own young players does not justify itself. Given the fact that the Kievans lost points against Oleksandria and Zorya in the last rounds, they apparently realized that it was pointless to fight for the champion’s title. As for the last meeting against the Lugansk club, the men of Yuriy Vernydub, while conceding at the beginning of the match, tried to win back throughout the whole game but managed to do it far in the added time.
If we talk about the general performance of the capital club in this season, there were no special sensations. In the Europa League, the team confidently progressed from the group, where they played with weak teams. Then it beat Olympiacos in the playoffs but lost to Chelsea with a hammering score (0: 8 - the sum of two fights). Surely, goalkeeper Boyko, who conceded the most in the Europa League, is not in the best mood. But if we look for something pleasant, it can be noted that the Kyiv club was the only one in the current season who had not conceded from Ajax in Amsterdam. This happened in the qualification for the Champions League group stage. The head coach of Dynamo Khatskevich does not get tired to repeat about this "achievement". Apparently, he could not find other reasons for highlighting his merits in the current season.
In this season, Shakhtar and Dynamo have already played four head-to-head games. Within the framework of the championship, they celebrated one minimum victory each and ended one meeting in a draw. Also, exactly one and a half months ago, opponents met in a bright match of the Ukrainian Cup quarterfinals. The game was worthy of being called the meeting of Ukrainian football’s stalwarts - it ended with the Miners’ victory on penalties.
Nominally, Shakhtar will be the home team in Kharkiv. However, many people in this city really support the Miners much more than Dynamo. Although the teams won’t have any tournament motivation in the upcoming meeting, they will still show motivated and responsible football because of the principled status of the confrontation. Both teams play well in defense in this season (let’s not remember the matches of Dynamo against Chelsea), so we probably will not see many defenders' mistakes and high scoring.
Prediction for the match: Under 2.5 goals scored
