Shakhtar Donetsk v Real Madrid Betting Tips [11 October 2022]

The fourth matchday of the UEFA Champions League group stage sees Real Madrid taking on Shakhtar Donetsk at the Pepsi Arena in Warsaw. Madrid have been perfect in the Champions League so far, winning three of their first three matches while only conceding a single goal. The results see Los Blancos topping Group F with a five point lead over their opponents today. Shakhtar has performed admirably in this tournament despite having to deal with losing a number of their key foreign players in the offseason due to the conflict involving Russia. The Miners are 1-1-1 in the group and sit second on four points after an away win against Leipzig and a home draw against Celtic. Shakhtar was able to limit the damage in their first meeting with Real Madird at the Bernabeu, keeping the match relatively close on the scoresheet when falling to a 2-1 loss in their last outing. 

Despite the one goal margin of victory in their first matchup, Madrid were utterly dominant in the match and deserved to win by a much more comprehensive scoreline. They fired off 36 shots in total, a massive 25 of which came in the opposition penalty area, while also managing to create five clear cut scoring opportunities. The defense was also able to hold Shakhtar to only three shots on target and without a clear cut scoring chance, although they would eventually concede a goal. The Spanish giants come into this match in good form and should be high on morale after getting the result that they wanted on the weekend in a 1-0 away victory against Getafe. Manager Carlo Ancelotti will be pleased with the defensive performance and the clean sheet despite the team not being at its best on the offensive side of the ball. Ancelotti was also able to afford some key rest to striker Karim Benzema with the talismanic French striker set to return for this one.

We’re going to back Real Madrid to win to nil as our bet for this one. Shakhtar don’t have much of a home-field advantage with their matches coming in Poland so both teams should be on equal footing here. Los Blancos will surely be looking to build some defensive consistency and will prioritize keeping back-to-back clean sheets as they have struggled on that front in the domestic season. Their dominance in the first meeting between the two teams last week should carry over into this one and a similarly smothering defensive performance will see them walk away with a clean sheet here.