Shakhtar Donetsk v Celta Vigo background
Friday, February 17, 2017
Article summary
A tenth consecutive win in the 2016/17 UEFA Europa League will be Shakhtar Donetsk's motivation as they take on Celta Vigo holding a 1-0 lead after the first instalment of their last-32 tie.
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Shakhtar Donetsk will aim to make it a perfect ten victories in this season's UEFA Europa League when they host Celta Vigo in the return leg of their round of 32 tie.
• Shakhtar extended their winning run in the 2016/17 competition to nine as they triumphed 1-0 in Vigo on 16 February, Gustavo Blanco Leschuk scoring 27 minutes into his debut for the Ukranian league leaders.
Previous meetings
• Víctor Fernández's Celta beat Viktor Prokopenko's Shakhtar 1-0 on aggregate in the 2000/01 UEFA Cup third round, Brazilian striker Catanha registering the only goal in the second leg. Those ties represent Celta's only previous encounters with Ukrainian opponents.
• Shakhtar have won only five of their 24 meetings with Spanish clubs (W5 D6 L13 – W2 D4 L5 in Ukraine).
Form guide
• Shakhtar have won all five of their UEFA home games this season by a 15-0 aggregate score.
• Paulo Fonseca's Shakhtar have recorded 13 successive victories in all competitions and are 26 matches unbeaten.
• Celta's European away record this term is W1 D1 L1.
• Shakhtar were the only side to win all six of their group stage fixtures and were also the most prolific scorers, with 21 goals – an average of 3.5 per game. They ended the group stage with a +16 goal difference – seven goals better than any other team.
• This is Celta's first continental venture since they made it through the group stage and into the last 16 of the 2006/07 UEFA Cup. Their biggest European achievement was reaching the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup in three successive seasons (1998/99, 1999/2000, 2000/01).
• UEFA Cup winners in 2009, Shakhtar progressed as far as the semi-finals last season, losing to eventual winners Sevilla.
Links and trivia
• The journey from Vigo to Kharkiv, where Shakhtar are playing their European home games this spring having staged matches in Lviv in the autumn, is around 3,500km.
• Shakhtar (2009) are one of seven former UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League winners in the round of 32, along with Tottenham Hotspur (1972, 1984), Borussia Mönchengladbach (1975 & 1979), Anderlecht (1983), Ajax (1992), Schalke (1997) and Zenit (2008).
• Shakhtar's Darijo Srna has played in 144 UEFA club matches, the highest total of any player in this season's UEFA Europa League. His nearest rival, Manchester United's Zlatan Ibrahimović, has made 134 appearances.
• Celta's Giuseppe Rossi opened the scoring on 29 March 2011 when Italy won a friendly 2-0 against a Ukraine side featuring Shakhtar's Yaroslav Rakitskiy and Taras Stepanenko.
The coaches
• Fonseca took the Shakhtar helm last summer after Mircea Lucescu moved on following 12 years in the post. His Braga team were ousted by Shakhtar in last term's UEFA Europa League quarter-finals but went on to land the Portuguese Cup.
• Eduardo Berizzo played in the UEFA Champions League for Marseille and Celta, the former Argentina centre-back subsequently returning to Europe in 2014 to take charge of the Galician club. He guided them back into Europe with a sixth-place finish in 2015/16.
Penalty shoot-outs
• Shakhtar lost their only previous UEFA penalty shoot-out:
L 1-4 A v Club Brugge (2002/03 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round)
• Celta have yet to feature in a UEFA penalty shoot-out.