Ukrainian soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk lost 6-0 during the UEFA Champions League match against German club Borussia Monchengladbach, played on Nov. 3 at Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv.
It was the worst home match for Ukraine in the group and knock-out stage of the UEFA Champions League since 1992, when the country first joined the competition. By the end of the first half, Ukrainians had missed four goals. That cast a damper over the team and the players couldn’t recover by the end of the game, according to Shakhtar’s coach Luis Castro.
In the 8th minute, 27-year old German midfielder Alassane Plea opened the score for Borussia, followed by defensive midfielder Christoph Kramer, 29, who scored the second goal in the 17th minute. Before the half-hour mark, Plea scored again in the 26th minute, while Borussia’s 25-year old defender Ramy Bensebaini scored the fourth goal just before the whistle. In the second half, Borussia forward Lars Stindl, 32, scored the fifth goal in the 65th minute and Plea completed its hat-trick in the 78th minute.
Ukrainian goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin, 19, couldn’t defend his goal and was recognized as Shakhtar Donetsk’s worst player by the football analytical platform WhoScored, which gave Trubin 4.6 out of 10 possible points for his game.
German’s midfielder Plea was the best player and got the maximum 10 points, according to WhoScored.
Although there was plenty of jubilancy among Ukrainian fans after Shakhtar Donetsk defeated renowned Spanish team Real Madrid 3-2 on Oct. 21, the team embarrassed itself in the game against Borussia, according to Castro.
“We didn’t play as a team. It was a terrible, weak game,” Castro added.
For the Germans, the results didn’t come as a surprise.
“We knew that Shakhtar wouldn’t press us too high,” Kramer said.
“We were very focused and made ourselves difficult to deal with,” Borussia’s Stindl said.
The experienced German team played against Shakhtar’s youth squad, as most of the team’s starting lineup had tested positive for COVID-19.
Germany now leads in the Group G league table with five points, while Shakhtar is second with 4 points, Real Madrid is third with four points, and the Italian team Inter Milan bottoms out the table with two points.
This was the third game in Group B, where Shakhtar Donetsk, besides Borussia Monchengladbach, has competed with Spanish Real Madrid and Italian Inter Milan. The Ukrainian club will have to play three more games, both home and away, for a total of six.
A win gives three points, a draw gives one point and the losing team doesn’t get any points. The two clubs with the highest scores after six games will compete in the knockout phase against 16 other international teams.
Shakhtar Donetsk’s next game against Borussia will take place on Nov. 25 in the German city Monchengladbach.
