Out for a win to edge closer to last 16

Matchday 4 of the Champions League group stage sees Actual Madrid tackle Shakhtar Donetsk this night on the Santiago Bernabéu 15 days on from the edges’ final assembly (6:45pm CET). Carlo Ancelotti‘s prices can be out to safe a 3rd win and transfer a step nearer to the competitors’s final 16.

The 5-0 away win recorded at Kiev’s Olympic Stadium on an evening when Vini Jr and Karim Benzema grabbed the headlines presents the squad the very best motivation to provide a repeat efficiency right here. The Brazilian, who comes into this one recent from having handed the team victory in Elche courtesy of a double, has already bagged a brace in opposition to the Ukrainian outfit this time period. Frenchman Benoît Bastien will be the man in the middle for a match through which Actual Madrid have the prospect to notch the membership’s 1,000th European Cup objective (at the moment on 999). 

“It is an vital matchday and if we have been to win, it would be actually signficiant”, insisted Ancelotti in his pre-match press conference, the place he was joined by Dani Carvajal: “We treat every game like it were a cup final and want to win the group”. Benzema, who similar to Vini Jr. has two targets to his title on this season’s Champions League, returns to the fray from this encounter.

In want of a win

Shakhtar have little room for error. De Zerbi’s troops must get one thing out of the sport to maintain their qualification hopes alive. They at the moment lie in fourth spot on one level, which they gained on Matchday 2 in opposition to Inter Milan. Nonetheless, they’re sitting fairly in second spot behind Dynamo Kiev within the Ukrainian high flight and routed Desna 4-1 of their ultimate outing earlier than the journey to the Bernabéu.