Inter - Shakhtar Donetsk (17 Aug 20) [5-0]

[YoramG]

Basel was genuinely awful. Putting Shaktar under pressure and not letting them get out of their half, like we did for much of the game against Leverkusen, will work wonders.

Still, I expect a hard game. Semi-finals are never easy, regardless of the opposition.

 

[Batman]

Too many skillful offesnive Brazillian forwards. I’m actually worried we’d struggle.

 

[junior55]

Too many skillful offesnive Brazillian forwards. I’m actually worried we’d struggle.

Skillful yes but not exceptional.
I would be worried vs Martial/Rashford but the brasilians didn't seem anything special tbh

 

[surripere]

Surely if they were all that good they wouldn't be at Shakhtar.

 

[forzainter257]

Shakhtar are good at finding quality Brazilians, the likes of Douglas Costa, Willian, Fernandinho were all brought to Europe by them. I have no doubt they found a couple of another potential top 4 championship players playing in their current team. But we finished 2nd in serie A for a reason and the current Inter look like a good oiled machine who can beat anyone. We should win them confidently. Forza ragazzi!

 

[surripere]

Those fuckers should have a restriction on the amount of Brazilians they can sign, it's like playing bloody Flamengo or something.

 

[RickyMaravilla'sRightFoot]

Shakhtar are a good team, but they still conceded plenty of chances to a bang average Swiss team. It won't be easy, but I expect a win here.

 

[brehme1989]

Those fuckers should have a restriction on the amount of Brazilians they can sign, it's like playing bloody Flamengo or something.

Half of them are naturalized or something.

Taison has been there for over a decade, Junior Moraes and Marlos have even played for the national team, Dentinho is another one who's probably been there for a decade, I think Patrick is also close to 8-9 seasons there, Ismaily is another household name, possibly over 5 seasons with them. Pretty sure there's like as many others that are recent transfers, but it's not like UEFA cares that much.

They have a foreigners limit in the Ukraine which they can cover easily and they do not have a bunch of non-Ukrainians on their roster due to these restrictions.


They still have to abide by the 8+17 rule, so it's really no different than Inter having players from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, England, Spain, Ghana etc as long as the HG rule for the squad registration is respected. If anything, it's them who have to complain as they have to play against teams that have access to a much greater talent pool while they have to settle for a majority of Ukrainian roster, who let's face it, if they are good enough would probably try to move to a better league, so that's a huge handicap. Kudos to them for managing to stay relevant and have attractive talent from Brazil stick around for years, not an easy task. Also not easy when the rest of Europe is looking to buy whatever you import from there.

 

[_OC_]

We faced Shakhtar for the first and only times in the qualifying stages for the Champions League back in 2005, going through 3-1 on aggregate.

0-2 away

and 1-1 at home

 

[Howl]

I haven't watched them for a while, but I remember a few years ago when they had the likes of Mhiki, Willian, Luiz Adriano, Douglas Costa and Taison in attack. Taison probably still is inconsistent as fuck (probably why no big club came for him) but either way Shaktar are always involved in exciting games so it should be fun to watch at least.

 

[Raul Duke]

I haven't watched them for a while, but I remember a few years ago when they had the likes of Mhiki, Willian, Luiz Adriano, Douglas Costa and Taison in attack. Taison probably still is inconsistent as fuck (probably why no big club came for him) but either way Shaktar are always involved in exciting games so it should be fun to watch at least.

They also had Teixeira, who got sold to Suning for €50 million. To get a sense of how attacking Shakhtar were, Mikhitaryan was playing in a two-man pivot next to Fernandinho at some point.

The seem to have a knack for getting high risk - high reward players and cashing in on the rewards.

 

[iMathcore19]

Its nice to have moses, but for this one i think its better use D'Ambro as WB instead, since i'd rather have Barella - Brozo - Eriksen in the first minute.
Young - Barella - Brozo - Eriksen - D'Ambro

Still confidence we can win this match, 3 - 1 with beast mode from Lukaku. Hopefully Eriksen can deliver noce Assist from the start.

 

[Il Drago]

Since most of us know next to nothing about Shakhtar I thought I should share this. It's a very interesting article about them.

https://totalfootballanalysis.com/article/shakhtar-donetsk-201920-team-analysis-scout-report-tactical-analysis-tactics

 

[Broseph Stalin]

Damn I'm so old that I actually remember us playing Shakhtar back in August of 2005. Around the same time we won the Supercoppa game against Juve with Veron scoring off Adriano's asssist in ET. What a fucking team we had back then

 

[Universe]

What a missed opportunity. Wildly disappointed you didn't use this

or this:

or even this

 

[Palatiga]

wow he try to be more chinese to appease suning

 

[brehme1989]

We'll have one day's rest more than Shakhtar, we should be winning.

 

[Pajo]

Will be fucked up game. Shakhtar is exactly the team we struggle against. Attacking minded, fast pacey players that are technically very good.. But then again, its the semis, we are not bad team per se, on paper are better than Shakhtar.

 

[.h.]

I think we'll need to be fairly defensive formation wise to soak up pressure and not get hit on the counter attack.

We PROBABLY dont need a DM, given they're playing 3-1 upfront, and our 5 at the back with D'ambro-Young should be enough for that. It's really a game I'd like to see Eriksen start, there's space in CM and we need to focus on exploiting their defense when we can.

 

[qb4ever_2k]

Will be fucked up game. Shakhtar is exactly the team we struggle against. Attacking minded, fast pacey players that are technically very good.. But then again, its the semis, we are not bad team per se, on paper are better than Shakhtar.

Sounds like Atalanta/Leverkusen.