Feyenoord vs Shakhtar Donetsk

De Kuip is the venue as Feyenoord and Shakhtar Donetsk lock horns in the return leg of their evenly-poised Europa League last-16 tie, with the first leg in Warsaw ending 1-1.

Feyenoord will rely on a reverberant atmosphere at De Kuip as they bid to beat Shakhtar in European for the first time after three failed attempts (D1, L2) and in turn reach the Europa League quarter-finals for the first time since lifting the UEFA Cup title in 2001/02. Arne Slot’s men have been relentless at home in major European competitions recently, going unbeaten in the last nine matches (W7, D2) while netting as many as 25 goals at an average of 2.77 per game. If they avoid defeat here, Feyenoord will string together ten consecutive European home fixtures without losing for the first time since 1992. Many signs point in that direction, especially the fact ‘De Stadionclub’ have yet to lose on home turf this season (W13, D5).

In the meantime, Shakhtar Donetsk will have to balance the scale of their all-time away record against Dutch clubs in European football (W1, L2) to advance into the Europa League quarter-finals for the first time since 2019/20. But since their only such win came against non-other than Feyenoord in the 2017/18 Champions League season, the Ukrainians will be confident about extending an impressive run of three away victories, all of which yielded 3+ goal margins. Against this backdrop, the ‘Miners’ have lost on their last two Europa League travels and could suffer three consecutive away defeats in Europe’s second-tier competition for the first time. There’s another reason for concern as they’ve failed to progress from seven of their ten previous European two-legged knockout ties when drawing the first leg.