Venue : Stade Louis II, Monaco
The winners of UEFA's two major European club cup competitions meet this Friday in the official curtain raiser for the new European season. Barcelona have history in this competition having played in no fewer than six of these games with Friday's game being their seventh.
Shakhtar Donetsk meanwhile will become the first Ukrainian team to take part in this competition with fellow Ukrainian team Dynamo Kyiv having represented the Soviet Union on the two occasions that they participated.
HISTORY
The UEFA Super Cup was initially established in 1972 and started off as a two legged affair between the winners of what was then the UEFA Champions Cup and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. It however underwent some major surgery over the years with the winners of the Champions Cup becoming the winners of the Champions League and the winners of the Cup winners' Cup being replaced by the winners of the UEFA Cup after the former competition was discontinued by UEFA.
Since 1998, the final has also been a single match played in Monaco at the Stade Louis II. AC Milan are the team that have won the Cup the most, on 5 occasions, while Barcelona have the unwelcomed distinction of having finished as runners up on more occasions than any other team (4 times).
Since the Super Cup became a single match between the UEFA Cup winners and the Champions League winners in 2000 the UEFA Cup winners have claimed the trophy on 5 occasions with Galatasaray, Liverpool, Valencia, Sevilla and Zenith St. Petersburg having upset the odds to beat the Champions League winners. Real Madrid, Liverpool and Milan on 2 occasions were the Champions League winners to have claimed the Super Cup in the other 4 years. Barcelona will want to take notice of this as Shakhtar will be no pushovers and based on the above statistics the UEFA Cup winners have shown they are just as likely to take the Super Cup as the Champions League winners.
Barcelona fans will not have fond memories of their last Super Cup outing when the then European Champions with a starting lineup of Valdes, Beletti , Marquez, Puyol, Sylvinho, Xavi, Thiago Motta, Deco, Messi, Etoo and Ronaldinho along with subs Zambrotta Thuram Giuly, Iniesta and Gudjohnsen found themselves on the wrong end of a 3-0 scoreline against a Sevilla team.
That Sevilla team contained current Barca superstar Dani Alves, who was incidentally named man-of-the-match, and reported Barca target Christian Poulsen as well as the late Antonio Puerta and were coached by ex-Real Madrid manager Juande Ramos. It was of course the start of a disastrous 2 years that saw Barcelona lose their La Liga and Champions League crowns as well as losing in the final of the FIFA Club World Cup. All Barcelona fans will be hoping that this Super Cup goes much better than the last one did.
ROAD TO THE SUPER CUP
The Road to this Super Cup began long before the finals of the Champions League and the UEFA Cup Last season. Here is a look at the path taken by each team to reach the Super Cup
FC Shakhtar Donetsk
Won Ukrainian League in 2007-2008 (the 3rd time in 4 years) qualifying for the Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round
Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round
Shakhtar Donetsk 2 - 0 Dinamo Zagreb
Dinamo Zagreb 1 - 3 Shakhtar Donetsk
Champions League Group Stage
FC Basel 1 - 2 Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk 1 - 2 Barcelona
Shakhtar Donetsk 0 - 1 Sporting CP
Sporting CP 1 - 0 Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk 5 - 0 Basel
Barcelona 2 - 3 Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar finished 3rd in their group qualifying for the UEFA Cup
UEFA Cup Round of 32
Shakhtar Donetsk 2 - 0 Tottenham
Tottenham 1 - 1 Shakhtar Donetsk
UEFA Cup Round of 16
CSKA Moscow 1 - 0 Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk 2 - 0 CSKA Moscow
UEFA Cup Quarter Final
Shakhtar Donetsk 2 - 0 Marseille
Marseille 1 - 2 Shakhtar Donetsk
UEFA Cup Semi Final
Dynamo Kiev 1 - 1 Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk 2 - 1 Dynamo Kiev
UEFA Cup Final
Shakhtar Donetsk 2 - 1 Werder Bremen
FC Barcelona
Finished 3rd in La Liga qualifying for the Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round
Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round
Barcelona 4 - 0 Wilsa Krakow
Wisla Krakow 1 - 0 Barcelona
Champions League Group Stage
Barcelona 3 - 1 Sporting CP
Shakhtar 1 - 2 Barcelona
Basel 0 - 5 Barcelona
Barcelona 1 - 1 Basel
Sporting CP 2 - 5 Barcelona
Barcelona 2 - 3 Shakhtar
Champions League Round of 16
Lyon 1 - 1 Barcelona
Barcelona 5 - 2 Lyon
Champions League Quarter Final
Barcelona 4 - 0 Bayern
Bayern 1 - 1 Barcelona
Champions League Semi Final
Barcelona 0 - 0 Chelsea
Chelsea 1 - 1 Barcelona
Champions League Final
Barcelona 2 - 0 Manchester United
PREVIOUS ENCOUNTERS
These two teams met twice last season in the Champions League Group stage with each side claiming a victory at the other team's stadium. Barca took the first match in the Ukraine in a real thriller. Ilsinho gave the home side the lead just before halftime with Messi looking on from the bench. Clearly needing a boost in the attack in the second half coach Pep Guardiola brought in Lionel Messi and Bojan Krkic for Thierry Henry and Samuel Etoo Respectively and the move almost paid instant rewards with Bojan going close on 81 mins with a blistering left footed shot after a move that saw him move past 2 Shakhtar defenders.
Barcelona would not be denied though and in the 87th minute a Bojan cross from the right was badly fumbled by the Shakhtar goalkeeper Pyatov leaving Messi with the on of the simplest tap ins of his career. Shakhtar now stumbling like a stunned boxer were very lucky not to concede a penalty in the 92nd minute when Andres Iniesta was hacked down inside the area following a Messi through ball. Barcelona would break down the door however in the 94 minute Xavi played Messi in with a defence splitting pass and the little Argentine kept his cool to produce a magnificent chip to seal the win. Shakhtar heartbroken and Barca showing some of the steely resolve that would see them claim the treble.
12 comments:
Might be a close game,but if our best players are there (probably not iniesta) we score 3 or 4 goals
Who ever wrote this article spell Dinamo Zagreb wrong...there is no y in the name so make it right....DINAMO ZAGREB...
As for all other...good article
You're previews are very impressive, barca4life - keep it up :)
"Shakhtar will once again be looking to their Brilliant Bevy of Brazilians to Beat the Blaugrana Black and Blue."
-that's some pretty good alliteration there.
Good in-depth article! Hopefully Barca will come on top and hopefully Messi and Ibra to score the goals! Vamos Barca!!
A good article, nice analysis of goals in time slots.
Hoping for a Barca win :)
hej tudore kako si proslavio rodzendan ?
Good news. Keirrison started for Benfica today in Europa League....
i hope chyggy proves his worth
Thanks for the kind words. Sorry about the spelling of dinamo, i think i got it from uefa.com but i obviously got it wrong.
Great article, a nice long read.
The points about when each team is likely to conceade is very insightfull.
Zlatan would have scored that goal that Eto'o missed.
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