TFT Issue 150!
FreeHowdy guys and girls!
Featured game
Shakhtar Donetsk vs Dynamo Kiev – over 2.5 goals at evens.
Today’s featured game is the Ukrainian Super Cup game between Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kiev. It’s generally down to the toss of a coin as to which of these two sides wins games like this but I’ve got reason to get involved today, which naturally pleases me!
First of all, let’s look at the venue, which is Vorskla Poltava’s Oleksiya Butov’skogo. Unless things have radically changed over the summer, which I doubt, this pitch is a bit of a shitty, lumpy mess. Vorskla like to keep it that way as it suits their dogged, compact, and boring football very well indeed – makes it hard for sides like Shakhtar Donetsk to come and play here. Subsequently, this pitch suits Kiev much more than Shakhtar as Kiev’s own pitch is a bit of a mess whereas Shakhtar have the best pitch in Eastern Europe, hence them playing brilliantly at home and somewhat disappointingly away from home, which can be noted in the comparison between their goals scored at home and away.
Again, quality-wise, there’s just not much between these two sides. Lucrescu loves his 4-5-1 as his midfield can dominate most club sides in the world nowadays. However, they’ve yet to find the correct striker, in my view, and that can cost them in games. Kiev will fight hard against them here and they’re more than capable of scoring goals themselves. Battling on this lumpy warzone with physical players is something that Shakhtar Donetsk will not enjoy, as per usual.
Returning to strikers, though – Shakhtar signed Dentinho from Corinthians over the summer, who could be the solution to their problems. However, he misses out today, along with Eduardo and Moreno, which does limit Shakhtar’s strikers considerably. Regular hitman Luiz Adriano is available, admitetdly, but they’re not overrun with alternatives. Although their midfield is at full-strength, their defence is very vulnerable today with full-back Rat and lynchpin Chygrynskiy both injured. Therefore, I anticipate a long game for Shakhtar today.
Kiev are reported to have a largely full squad and boy do they hate Shakhtar! I think they hate them more for the relentless pounding that Rinat Akmetov’s money makes as it continually flows into the Shakhtar piggy bank! Kiev will work very hard here and there are far more players in the Kiev ranks that this derby means more to than there is in Shakhtar’s Brazilians so I’d be very, very cautious on the 1×2 market, although I cannot deny that Bwin’s offer of 4/5 on laying Shakhtar today looked very generous indeed.
However, I have to go with over 2.5 goals here. Kiev are bound to score against a Shakhtar defence that is very vulnerable today and I expect Shakhtar to take advantage of Kiev’s lack of width all over the park to score themselves. Given the passion in this game, I think we’ll eventually see this game go over 2.5 goals, not to mention include a lot of cards. Therefore, my call is over 2.5 goals in this game as it’s reasonably priced at evens.
Team news – Shakhtar Donetsk miss Rat, Chygrynskiy, Moreno, Eduardo, and Dentinho.
Verdict: Over 2.5 goals at evens.