Shakhtar Donetsk v Porto
Football: UCL group stage, Group G
Venue: Donbass Arena, Donetsk
Wednesday 23th November – Kickoff time: 21:45 GMT+2

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Shakhtar Donetsk

After recently winning the Europa League and playing quarterfinals in the UCL group stages, everyone expected from Shakhtar to continue this progression and at least achieve the same performances as they did in their previous campaign.

Who have thought that after four games in a group with Zenit, Porto and Apoel, Shakhtar will be still seeking for their first victory and will be bottom placed in a group led by Apoel. The team from Cyprus can be considered one of the biggest surprises in the modern history of the UCL, but they are still not qualified at this stage, despite having collected 8 points.

Mircea Lucescu, the Romanian coach that made all those performances happen at Shakhtar declared at the beginning of the competition that the team that will lose points to Apoel will be the one that will fail to progress. Well, all three favorites lost points to Apoel so for both Shakhtar and Porto this match is the last chance to keep their hopes alive.

Shakhtar with Mircea Lucescu has a negative record against Portuguese opponents, they won three times and lost four. The previous match at Dragao between these two was won by the home side.

Shakhtar will be without right-back and captain Dario Srna who is serving a one match ban and central back Dmytro Chyrgynskiy who is recovering from an injury. These are huge issues for Mircea Lucescu considering that even with these two they looked vulnerable in defense. Fernandinho, Willian and Andriy Pyatov are all in doubt.

Probable Shakhtar line-up :

Rybka
Kobin, Rakytskiy, Kucher, Rat
Hubschmann, Mkhitaryan
Douglas Costa, Teixeira, Willian
Luiz Adriano

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Porto

This season’s campaign has not gone as planned for Porto either, they only managed to collect one point from two games against Apoel and even if they win today, they’ll still have to face Zenit in the last match, a team that beat them in September with 3-1.

Porto is coming after a surprising loss in the Portugues Cup against Academica Coimbra. Winners in the past three seasons, Porto were knocked out from the competition by the team they beat 3-0 in the league. Now they’ve lost with the same score.

Porto have not failed to progress from the group stages of the UCL since finishing bottom in the 2005/06 campaign. They have a record of two wins and a draw on past visits in Ukraine, most recently a 2-1 success at FC Dynamo Kyiv in 2008.

Fredy Guarin and Eliaquim Mangala has been left out of the squad, while left back Alvaro Pereira could feature tonight after recovering from tendinitis.

Probable Porto line-up :

Helton
Fucile, Otamendi, Rolando, A. Pereira
Fernando
Moutinho, Belluschi
Hulk, Kleber, J. Rodriguez

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The Betting Verdict

The problem with Shakhtar is that they couldn’t find a proper balance between the defensive and attacking compartments. There are like two different styles within the same team and most of the time the defense can’t rise to the level of the rest of the team.

If that was the case until now, I wonder how will they perform without Srna and Chyrgynskiy. Anyway, it’s clear to everyone that they will have to take more risks, because if they don’t win Shakhtar will lose all chance of reaching the knockout stage.

This was pointed out by Porto’s coach Vitor Pereira, who also said that his team is well prepared and they’ll play fast, aggressive football.

With players like Hulk or Rodriguez, I expect Porto to do some damage if they’ll have more spaces and it seems like they will. Let’s not neglect Shakhtar’s firepower either, they still have some great Brazilian players in front like Willian or Luiz Adriano.

In 8 games played in this group, only one ended without both teams scoring (Zenit 1-0 Shakhtar) and especially at this game and at this moment of the competition when both teams must take risks I expect plenty of goals.

The Statistics :

The Pick :

Shakhtar Donetsk 1-2 Porto

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take Over 2.5 goals to be scored at 2.00 Ladbrokes
Confidence: 8/10