On the second day of preparations during its stay in Belek, Vojvodina will play its first friendly match. At 3:30 pm Serbian time, the rival red and whites on the pitch of the Susesi Luxury Resort will be the mighty Shakhtar from Donetsk, the current champion and leader of the Ukrainian Premier League. This season, Shakhtar participated in the group stage of the Champions League, where in the group with Manchester City, Atalanta and Dinamo Zagreb took third place, and in the spring will participate in the Round of 32 of the Europa League. The fact that the value of the team is estimated at 152.7 million euros speaks enough about the quality of this squad.
Shakhtar was founded in 1936 under the name Stahanovec, and took its current name 10 years later. Until the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it played its matches as a host at the magnificent Donbass Arena, with a capacity of 51,504 seats, and due to the current situation it welcomes its rivals at Metalist Stadium in Kharkov.
In its rich history, Shakhtar has won as many as 38 trophies, with the most notable being the UEFA Cup from the 2008/09 season, when it won its only international trophy with a victory over German Werder. In addition, Shakhtar also has 12 Ukrainian league titles, 13 Ukrainian Cups, eight Ukrainian Super Cups and four Soviet Union Cups in its showcases.
The coach of Shakhtar is Portuguese Luís Castro, who can count on exceptionally high quality players, among whom stand out goalkeeper Andrii Piatov and left wing Yevhen Konoplianka, former player of FC Schalke 04 and Sevilla FC. Of the 32 players in Shakhtar’s first team, 14 are foreigners, including as many as 12 Brazilians, plus one Georgian and one Israeli.
What is interesting is that the current boss of Vojvodina Nenad Lalatović spent the most significant part of his foreign playing career in Shakhtar, for which he performed from 2003 to 2005. According to him, today he will oppose two of Vojvodina’s lineups to his former club, giving each of them the opportunity to play one half.
